Star Trek Into Darkness is the twelfth Star Trek film, and it's the second of three films produced by J.J. Abrams which take place in the Kelvin Timeline.

One year after the events of the previous film, this story is about one of the Enterprise crew's greatest foes, in either timeline. After two terror attacks on Earth, Kirk goes after the man responsible, but everything is not as it seems. When he learns about seventy-two top-secret torpedoes having been loaded onto the Enterprise, the mysterious antagonist surrenders willingly, despite having the upper hand. Together, he and Kirk must uncover the true intentions of one of Starfleet's admirals.

One-sentence summary: A megalomaniacal, warmongering Starfleet admiral enlists the help of Khan, and only the crew of the Enterprise can stop them with the cunning use of gratuitous action scenes.

Let's get one major spoiler out of the way right at the start: Benedict Cumberbatch's character is Khan Noonien Singh. His identity is not revealed until nearly 1 hour and 10 minutes into the movie, but everyone knew Cumberbatch's role before the film was even released. While Khan's appearance was not explicitly leaked, there were too many clues in previews and other media leading up to the film's release that led fans to correctly speculate on the true identity of Khan's pseudonym, “John Harrison”.

I have to admit that I had a hard time rating this one. At first, I hated it. Then I asked myself, “Is it really that bad?” Then I sort of came to the conclusion that it's not bad as a movie but it is bad as a Star Trek movie. It starts off unapologetically announcing what it intends to be, with running, jumping, yelling, a volcano, and a big dramatic shot of the Enterprise surfacing from under an alien ocean: this is going to be an action film. And that is fine with me, I understand the desire to make a feature film a little bit more digestible by the general public, as long as you stay true to the Star Trek mythos. Whether the film succeeded in the latter is debatable.

By taking many elements from the 1986 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – arguably the most-loved Trek film of the original six, if not of all time – this movie sets itself up for heavy criticism because, obviously, fans are going to compare it to the original... and where this film doesn't live up to its predecessor, fans will come down hard on it. Let's see, we have Khan extorting someone in order to blow up the Kelvin Memorial Archive so that Khan can steal something in a bag, but we never find out what it is. Pike dies, and Spock mind-melds with him without consent. Kirk finds out that Khan had a magic long-distance beaming device he used to get to Qo'noS, which sort of negates the need for starships. McCoy seems rather concerned about Kirk's vitals during their return to the Enterprise, but we never find out why. Maybe he was suffering from some sort of illness that was somehow supposed to explain why Kirk doesn't bat an eye at loading seventy-two mystery torpedoes onto the ship, even accepting Scotty's resignation over the issue!

Regardless of how you feel about the majority of it, the real disappointment comes in the last 12 minutes of the film (not including the credits). From the moment that Spock re-creates the iconic “KHAN!!” scream from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, it's all downhill from there. Now, personally, I didn't mind this alternate version of the events of the original film. I thought it was interesting enough, and it's an alternate timeline, after all, so it's not as if it's tromping on established canon. But after that, the film fully throws the switch from “Star Trek film” to “generic action flick”. The crash-landing of the dreadnought was gratuitous, and the hand-to-hand sequence on the moving vessels could have come from any action movie, and it actually felt silly for a Trek movie. And then, presto! Suddenly everything is reset back to the way it was at the start of the film. Everyone is alive and well, and things go on as if nothing happened. How perfectly idiotic.

👎 Demotion/Promotion Whiplash — As if Kirk being promoted from third-year cadet to captain in the previous film wasn't ridiculous enough, here he is demoted all the way back to cadet and re-promoted to first officer less than five minutes later (in elapsed movie time). Twelve minutes after that (elapsed movie time), after Pike is killed, Kirk is given back his captain's seat on the Enterprise. Phew! That has got to be the fastest and most drastic demotion/promotion cycle in Starfleet history!

🤷‍♂️ Carol Marcus underwear shot — first of all, why was she changing? She is next seen on the planetoid surface wearing the same blue uniform shirt she had on before, just with the dark-grey away team uniform layered over top. Anyway, fine, she looks great. All I'm saying is that if you're going to keep her underwear scene in, then also keep the seven seconds of Khan in the shower that you originally shot. Let's be fair, here!

👍 Villain #1 — Khan is a clear improvement of an antagonist as compared to the previous film's Nero.

👎 Villain #2 — Starfleet seems to have a long history of corrupt and awful admirals, so we can just add Marcus to the list. Someone should probably do a study on this.

👎 “Bones, what are you doing with that tribble?” — “It's a plot device, Jim. Trust me, this will be important later.” This exchange is so out of place, it literally interrupts Kirk's conversation with Khan. It feels cheap and ham-fisted.

👎👎 Deus ex Tribleustes ventricosus (god from the tribble) — not in keeping with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, they bring Kirk back to life at the end of the film. Everything after Kirk's death in this film just happens far too quickly. Spock's “final boss battle” with Khan, Bones shoving Kirk into a cryo-tube, and then it just literally cuts to black and suddenly Kirk is alive again. Kirk was dead for less than nine minutes of elapsed movie time. This “magic reset” at the end is perhaps the most egregious part of the film. For comparison, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock died and stayed dead. Fans had to wait for the next film, released two years later, to find out if Spock would somehow return.