Review

The sequel to Star Trek XI's reboot corrects some of the prior film's sins, repeats others, and commits some new ones in the process. The biggest improvement was the hyperactive pace of the previous film being toned down a bit. This gave the film time to flesh out Kirk's and Spock's altered characters a bit more, doing much to set them apart from their counterparts in the original universe. Minor characters get more appropriate things to do too. The acting performances of Sulu and especially Chekov annoyed me last time around, but no longer. Probably the best minor character moment was Scotty objecting to classified weaponry on the Enterprise on the grounds of possible unintended technical consequences. Was he just jealous about the loss of control, or did he sincerely believe his caution to be warranted? Both the writing and the actor leave that open to interpretation, which I liked. The most important improvement from last time around is this film provides more texture for how Kirk went from cadet to fully commissioned officer with the rank of captain in one day. We already knew from the previous film that Admiral Pike made Kirk into a sort of pet, but here we're presented with a much more nuanced take on their relationship, which establishes the idea that Kirk's rapid rise through the ranks has been unconventional, controversial, and difficult for Pike to continue to justify. At the beginning of the film, Pike has had enough and finally resorts to threatening to demote Kirk all the way back to cadet. These scenes do much to establish the credibility that was lacking the previous film's plot, though in my view they don't go quite far enough.

While this film corrected the main issues with the previous film's character writing, it repeats most of the previous film's other missteps. First and foremost, we still have no on-screen evidence one way or the other as to whether this new universe exists apart from the old one or supersedes it. Also Scotty's magic transporter formula continues to defy my suspension of disbelief. As Emory Erickson stated in Ent: Daedalus, if it were possible to reliably beam people from one planetary system to another several light years away, then why have starships? Khan beaming directly from Earth to the Klingon home world was completely absurd. Likewise, the film once again had difficulty accurately portraying the speed of warp drive, with total travel time at warp speed between Earth and the Klingon home world apparently lasting only minutes. And just like the last film, this film is as sloppy with continuity as it is with its future tech. Admiral Marcus' involvement in Section 31 was a pathetic writing blunder compared to the smooth operation that Sloan ran on DS9, as it's stated that Admiral Marcus was motivated solely by the desire to establish a military-industrial complex. As such, there was no reason to tell Kirk about Section 31's existence at all, as Admiral Marcus could have satisfied his objectives without disclosing that detail. Likewise, it seems nobody on the Enterprise had ever cracked open a history book on the Eugenics Wars, or they'd have known precisely who Khan was well before it was necessary for Old Spock to educate his younger self on the matter.

What's worse, this film commits a striking new sin: it's considerably more unoriginal. For starters, the quickly chewed up and forgotten pre-warp civilization's portrayal at the beginning of the film strongly resembled the similar one in Star Trek IX: Insurrection. But more obviously, the vast majority of this film was a blatant rehash of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. While it was nice to see Carol Marcus in a strikingly different role and it was also nice to see the new character of Admiral Marcus overshadow Khan as the main villain for most of the film, those tweaks just weren't enough. The film just couldn't resist peppering itself endlessly with nostalgic references to its predecessor. Some were tasteful and clever, others were painful and tacky. Added together, the story isn't really much more than the sum of its parts: a more action-packed take on Wrath of Khan with a mildly interesting exploration of New Kirk's reckless youth as opposed to the much more interesting exploration of Old Kirk's decaying youth. Most of the film feels as though it's merely going through the motions of what a somewhat hollow but glitzy rehash of Wrath of Khan is supposed to look like. Even the title of the film doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose other than to simply sound cool. But that disappointing lack of depth, heart, and originality is by no means a showstopper. This film, just like the one it follows, is once again an undeniably fun action romp. It's just sad that these fun action romps must continue to come at the unnecessary expense of the intelligent storytelling and thoughtful embrace of the franchise's rich history that the series used to enjoy.