Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3

It wasn’t until very late in the film – midway through the first post-credits scene, in fact – that Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 finally clicked for me. It is not spoiling very much to mention that a band of characters sits around and listens to Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love,” mutually agreeing that it is one of the greatest songs in history. It’s an unapologetic lure on the fishing line of nostalgia, made all the more hollow by the fact that many of the aforementioned characters we’ve only just met. (Certainly none of them had been there for Peter Quill’s opening dance number in the first Guardians film.)

While this post-credits scene ostensibly points toward a future for the franchise (including, it pains me to say, one particular inflection that reminded me all too much of the dismal Thor: Love and Thunder), it is also trying desperately to serve as an evocative coda to a trilogy that hasn’t held together as well as its finale would like to pretend. Writer/director James Gunn is juggling too much, straining like Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man to hold it all together, and while the film is competently told and engaging enough, it is overlong and baggy, and it serves more as a love letter to itself than anything else. 

 

Vol. 3 finds Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) wounded in a battle with Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), leading to the revelation, finally, of the horrific circumstances that created Rocket. Peter Quill, the Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), and his ersatz band of Guardians team up with the Ravager Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) to break into the vaults of the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) in search of Rocket’s salvation.

 

If I’m daydreaming or almost falling asleep, there’s something very wrong with the movie. And while I should have been trying harder to separate the movie from off-screen drama, vast swaths of this bloated movie failed to hold my attention. (It wasn’t, however, as dire as Black Widow, the only Marvel movie where I’m not convinced I didn’t nod off.) And so it was that I found myself wondering how many moviegoers had seen last November’s Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which already introduced the concept of the Guardians defending Knowhere alongside the revelation that Peter Quill and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) were half-siblings. I wondered if we were still in trilogy territory, and then I remembered that the Guardians trilogy had a significant detour through Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which looms quite large over Vol. 3. 

 

Here, Gunn has to accommodate the time-travel shenanigans that killed off Gamora but restored her from a decade-old past, and Gunn never quite figures out how to fit Gamora back into the franchise. Moreover, the film takes time to air Gunn’s own grievances about the way “his” characters were handled by the Russo Brothers in the third and fourth Avengers films (a complaint no one else shares); in one of my least favorite superhero movie tropes, Star-Lord has a long monologue about the unfortunate and nonsensical circumstances that have led to his current state of affairs. It’s a scene that is meant to play for laughs, but the joke is on the source material and on the fans for taking any of this seriously; in short, it’s another iteration of Gunn’s “comics are for bozos” mentality, and of his bizarre insistence that only he understands these characters. (See also his recent claims that Star-Lord would never have lost his temper in the fight against Thanos.)

 

Indeed, throughout the film, Gunn is trying to play the hits, his hits, as in the Redbone sequence, but all of it feels simply like thumbing through a scrapbook – which the end credits actually bear out, showing still photos to remind us of the foregoing entries in the franchise. But each echo misses what made the originals special. The first Guardians film was a breath of fresh air in a genre that was beginning to take itself too seriously, and it was a welcome treat to see on-screen interpretations of characters that even comics fans thought too ludicrous for primetime. Even the second film, which hasn’t aged well in my estimations, overly reliant on emotional insincerity and crude humor, still had that Marvel heart when it came to the idea of family. Never mind the iconic soundtrack of the films, mashing up unlikely oldies with shots of spaceships and laser blasts; here, however, none of the songs is really very memorable, and the gag about swapping a Walkman for a Zune seems to have yielded only a paucity of good tunes. (Even the Guardians fanfare gets short shrift in this one.) Here, however, Vol. 3 is an ending that doesn’t have the heart to end, striking a false chord in the final twenty minutes, which consist of (as Neil Gaiman would put it) people standing around saying good-bye to each other.

 

In the middle of it all, though, is a very compelling performance by Chukwudi Iwuji as one of Marvel’s better villains of late. His High Evolutionary is a far cry from the cosmic source material, but Iwuji’s version is fantastic, entirely unsympathetic and intrinsically evil without needing to twirl a mustache. As great as he is, though, there’s a beat where Star-Lord cuts short his supervillain soliloquy with snarky remarks about why villain monologues don’t work and whether the High Evolutionary’s mother loved him enough. Iwuji barrels on, almost as if he’s sick of these jokes too, and one almost wishes that this spine of the film had been its own Rocket Raccoon feature – inspired by, or perhaps plagiarized from, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s We3 comics about animal experimentation. (Floor the Rabbit is, at least, plundered wholesale from We3’s Pirate.) In fact, Iwuji’s performance is so engaging that one wonders if he shouldn’t replace the beleaguered Jonathan Majors and retroactively enroll the High Evolutionary as one more ageless Kang.

 

Look, I’m no fan of James Gunn, but I went into this thing with an open mind. I did, after all, love the first one! Vol. 3 is not, thank God, the nightmarish brand of misanthropy we saw in The Suicide Squad – a film that I’m still convinced would like nothing more than to shove me into a locker – and it’s at least effective on an emotionally manipulative level. The action scenes aren’t anything special, and the script is working overtime to resolve too many concurrent plots. But it lacks sufficient grounds for me to be able to say it’s a bad movie; it’s just not as good as it ought to be, nor as good as it hopes, striking an indelicate balance between ridiculing its characters for having emotions and then expecting us to play along when those same emotions are played sincerely.

 

Vol. 3 is, in short, attempting to eat its cake and have it too, but it’s a cake with a hollow center that tries to convince us that it’s a better, earlier cake. Worse, this particular cake smacks of self-congratulation, yet at the end of the day, I’ve eaten 32 slices (plus whatever the television shows are in this analogy), and I’ve come too far to quit just yet. 

 

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action, strong language, suggestive/drug references and thematic elements.” Written and directed by James Gunn. Based on the Marvel Comics. Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Chukwudi Iwuji, and Will Poulter.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Yes, it’s been thirteen years since Avatar, and I can say that not a day has gone by when I’ve wanted more from the franchise. I’ve strolled around the theme park in Orlando, and I’ve listened to the soundtrack off and on, and I even attended the IMAX rerelease three months ago once it seemed that James Cameron was finally going to deliver on his decade-plus of promises to revisit the world of Pandora. I did all these things out of no particular affection for the movie, its creators, or even its specific world; any attachment I have to Avatar is purely on the level of an appreciation for spectacle. Avatar: The Way of Water is no better than its predecessor, but it is certainly more, and your take on the movie will probably tell us more about you than it will about the film itself. It is, in a sense, a pure cinematic Rorschach test.

It’s been several years since Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) “went native” and abandoned his human body for a Na’vi avatar; he’s started a family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and made a home in the forests of Pandora. But when the “sky people” return to the alien world, in search of profit and revenge, they’re accompanied by the impossibly-resurrected Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who wants Sully’s blood for himself. To protect their Omatikaya tribe, Sully and his family flee their home and take refuge with the water-dwelling Metkayina Clan.

 

Let’s begin right off the bat with an admission that The Way of Water is loaded with some Grade-A nonsense, bordering on sheer balderdash. Even setting aside the bonkers reinclusion of Stephen Lang’s snarly villain, this is a three-hour movie where Sigourney Weaver also returns, but in the body of a blue teenager; where holding your breath is a pivotal plot point; and where crucial exposition is delivered by an immense telepathic whale. If you made it through that sentence without rolling your eyes, this might be the movie for you, but if not, your patience for sci-fi claptrap may wear thin long before the film’s three hours elapse. 

 

And it is long, make no mistake about it. It’s three hours long, and it does feel it; though I’m not sure exactly what I would cut (because James Cameron seems never to have met a Chekhov’s gun he didn’t fire), the last twenty minutes feel like extended set-up for a third film. While things are always happening on screen, there’s a point about two hours in, just before the third act and all its 3D action begin, when one’s hindquarters may be falling asleep. I was never entirely bored, but I was growing restless. Put another way, The Way of Water never quite earns its runtime the way Avengers: Endgame did – which may say more about me than about either movie. 

 

Part of the challenge is that The Way of Water is paper-thin. Its plotting is entirely unsubtle, its characterization never transcends the immediate needs of the plot, and the dialogue is in places ear-scrapingly direct. (“Who’s got the harpoon now?” one character sarcastically asks another after a third quite literally takes possession of a harpoon.) As far as the story goes, Cameron has never really scored points for originality. Indeed, after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, he’s not even the first movie this winter about a lost civilization of underwater blue people at war with a technologically-advanced military. Like the first one, this Avatar is equal parts Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves, Ferngully and Smurfs in space, though The Way of Water is generously leavened with Free Willy and even a helping of Moby-Dick. We’ve seen all of this before, and most of it in the last Avatar film.

 

Yet I will give Cameron points for the film paying out like a slot machine in its third act. Nearly everything that’s been set up in the first two acts comes to bear in the grand finale, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I too got swept along with the rest of my theater when the aforementioned giant whale returned to the plot and did its Tulkun thing all over the bad guys. Other plot threads resurface in surprising ways, including one especially gratifying amputation, and you do end up with a very satisfying conclusion – if you have the patience and the tolerance to get there.

 

I can grumble about the fact that the acting is a little wooden (especially and egregiously, Edie Falco, who seems to be reading her lines cold off a cue card) or that the storytelling is nothing new, but I don’t think anyone comes to a James Cameron film because he’s some sort of poet laureate. Rather, he’s an expert ringmaster in the circus of spectacle; we come to his movies to be entertained, to be dazzled by special effects and ultra-widescreen action. Things blow up in three pristine dimensions, and water has never looked this crystalline. You have to wade through storytelling that is less than inspired to get there, but the Cameron vibe has always been, “Trust me, this will be worth it.” No one came to Titanic for the greatest love story ever; we came to watch a big ship sink. Likewise, no one comes to The Way of Water because we can’t get enough of those Na’vi; we come to see motion-capture evolve, to see a world unlike ours, and if it feels a little like a nature documentary, so be it – The Way of Water has a mellow hang-out aura that verges on overstaying its welcome before hitting a rousing third act. 

 

In terms of its narrative, The Way of Water is only as effective as it needs to be to serve that third act, and on an emotional level I’m not sure that we grow attached enough to the characters to feel the climax. But on the level of visual spectacle, there’s really nothing quite like an Avatar movie, and your ability to derive maximum enjoyment from the film really depends on how much you’re willing and able to silence your critic’s brain and just ride the waves. That’s, after all, the true way of water – go with the flow.

 

Avatar: The Way of Water is rated PG-13 for “sequences of strong violence and intense action, partial nudity, and some strong language.” Directed by James Cameron. Written by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno. Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, and Kate Winslet. 

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)

It’s a bit weird to reflect on the idea that, three years ago, there had been speculation that Guardians of the Galaxy, starring a talking raccoon and a walking tree, might be Marvel’s first box office bomb. In 2017, though, we are Groot; put another way, it’s Star-Lord’s galaxy, and we all just go to the movies in it. As for Vol. 2, it’s a real delight, often more of the same but in a way that feels like qualitatively more.

Having saved the galaxy once before, the Guardians have inflated their prices and their egos to match. In disparate plotlines that coalesce in surprising ways, Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) meets the omnipotent Ego (Kurt Russell), his long-lost father; Gamora (Zoe Saldana) takes up anew her feud with wicked sister Nebula (Karen Gillan); and Rocket and Baby Groot (voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, respectively) find themselves caught up in a war between Yondu (Michael Rooker) and his mutinous band of Ravagers. And then there’s Drax (Dave Bautista), the metaphor-less marauder, who’s happy just to slice and dice as needed.

I’ve got a soft critique of the film, though it’s more a bit of a backhanded compliment, and it’s that the film is wearingly funny. And I don’t mean that Vol. 2 ever becomes unfunny, but around the second act I had this surprising and acute desire for the jokes to take a breather and get back to the character work that made the first film such a rousing success. Indeed, a more cynical moviegoer might lament that the film is undercut by the overabundance of jokes, gags, and giggles, and I certainly feel the balance tipped in favor of humor this go-around.

That is not to say, however, that there isn’t really compelling character work being done, although surprisingly it’s the supporting characters that really get developed over the core five. Ego has a pretty engaging story arc, and writer/director James Gunn was right to make the film less about the mystery of Star-Lord’s paternity and more about what he does with that knowledge. If you’d told me that Yondu was going to be the most interesting member of the cast this go-around, I’d have thought it had something to do with the size of his red fin, but Gunn and Rooker did the pleasantly unexpected and gave Yondu a plot arc that goes over the course of the film and also clarifies a few bits about his role as Star-Lord’s erstwhile stepfather.

It’s the main cast that doesn’t quite make the leap from A to B as they did in the first, discovering their capacity for working together and finding a kind of family. Star-Lord grows, sure, but how could he not, where Gamora’s arc mainly consists in convincing other characters of things; Rocket and Groot are the same lovable violent pair, a kind of Rocketcrantz and Grootenstern for the cosmos. It is – and this should come as no surprise – Groot who steals the film wholesale, from his opening performance of ELO’s “Mister Blue Sky” to the perpetual challenges he faces in expressing himself. These characters are, however, fun enough that it’s still a treat to spend two hours with this particular “bunch of a-holes.”

Gunn continues not to play ball with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, eschewing the usual batch of cameo appearances (though Stan Lee appears, naturally, in what might be a kind of game-changer). There’s nary an Infinity Stone in sight, yet as we dash apace toward Infinity War, there’s something refreshing about that; as much as I love the shared universe, there would have been something inorganic about seeing Iron Man or even Thor wander in. Lest we forget, though, Gunn maintains and exacerbates the central rule of Marvel Studios with not one but five post-credits sequences, which suggest that the shared universe will bend toward the cosmic, if only because there’s more nodded toward than can possibly be encompassed in a Vol. 3. And while I can’t say I’ve ever been a big fan of “Cosmic Marvel” – The Silver Surfer is about as far as I go, and Marvel Studios doesn’t own him (yet) – if Gunn is guiding the Guardians, I’m on board.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 is rated PG-13 for “sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language, and brief suggestive content.” Written and directed by James Gunn. Based on the Marvel Comics by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, and Kurt Russell.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

I’ll admit to being something of a Star Trek novice, having only seen the most recent JJ Abrams reboots and one or two of the Picard-era films (the latter, when I was too young to comprehend fully that they weren’t Star Wars). It’s a glaring absence on my nerd-bingo card, one I’ll get around to rectifying one of these days. But for now I’m content with the sporadic relationship I have with Star Trek, mostly because the new franchise hasn’t disappointed yet: Star Trek Beyond is the hat trick for the series, an engaging and exciting romp.

Several years into their “five-year mission,” the crew of the Enterprise are feeling directionless. Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is looking for a way out of his purposeless command, while Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) are having a bit of a tiff over the former’s anxiety about mortality. An opportunity to mount a rescue mission into deep space rallies the Enterprise together, only to find them falling into the hands of the murderous and mysterious Krall (Idris Elba).

Despite my misgivings about the final act of Star Trek Into Darkness, I predicted that the next film would be “a real hoot,” and I’m glad to report that I was right. Even without JJ Abrams at the directorial helm this time (you may recall he was off directing a little film about forces awakening), Justin Lin proves adept at science fiction and keeping the momentum of the film going between action sequences and conversation pieces.

Indeed, the real success of the film is the chemistry between the cast. Of course, it’s been seven years in our world, and the cast really seem to have bonded in that time, approximating the tensions and dynamics of a deep-space voyage. Everyone continues the caliber of work they’ve done previously (save Simon Pegg, who pulls double-duty on screenplay but seems more isolated from the rest of the cast), but it’s Quinto’s interactions with Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy that steal the film wholesale. The juxtaposition of sassy physician with cold logic is something I don’t recall dominating the other two to this extent (Bones was memorably paired with Kirk as POV characters for Star Trek in 2009), but I’d watch a whole movie about these two.

I would have liked to see more of Idris Elba as the antagonist, and while that’s a sentence I usually say about most movies it’s especially apt in Star Trek Beyond because I remember having a distinct feeling near the beginning of the third act that I had no clue what his motivations were. It’s a step in the opposite direction from Into Darkness, where Kirk knew that John Harrison was evil because Old Spock told him so, and Krall’s motivations are abundantly clear by the end of the film in a way that ties together a number of disparate plot threads with surprising aplomb. I don’t quite know how I might have addressed this element without giving away the twist, other than to say Elba deserves more screen time, but it strikes me as a slight tension in the film.

All told, though, the greatest compliment I can pay Star Trek Beyond is to say that it isn’t a poor impression of Guardians of the Galaxy, much as the early trailers attempted to convince us. It is purely its own thing, the first wholly original plotline that doesn’t derive its narrative momentum from the concept of an alternate timeline. In this sense, Star Trek Beyond boldly goes where no Star Trek reboot has gone before, into fresh and original storytelling that is no longer beholden to what came before.

Star Trek Beyond is rated PG-13 for “sequences of sci-fi action and violence,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

By now, we’re all familiar with the Marvel formula and its somewhat unique brand of adapting comic book properties into blockbuster fun.  Guardians of the Galaxy reads almost like a challenge to themselves – can the Marvel method work on characters the mainstream audience has almost certainly never heard of?  It worked at the beginning with Iron Man, and as we approach the second Avengers film, Guardians proves that Marvel is unstoppable, taking everything that worked about their earth-bound adventures and applying that to space.

Intergalactic outlaw Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) wants to live up to his self-applied moniker of Star-Lord, but what he gets instead is a bounty on his head, pursued by Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel), a machine-gun-toting raccoon and his talking tree partner.  After the trio is arrested, they align themselves with fellow inmates Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Drax (Dave Bautista) to escape prison before preventing a mad warlord (Lee Pace, as Ronan the Accuser) from destroying the galaxy.

Has anyone called Harrison Ford to congratulate him on the buckets of money that Guardians has made thus far?  I ask this because Guardians feels like the love child of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, very heavily inflected by the cavalier confidence of Ford’s characterization of Han Solo and Indiana Jones.  It’s especially evident during the opening credits sequence, in which Peter Quill steals a precious artifact from a temple, only to incur the wrath of its protectors.  (The film’s conclusion, with one scene set in the Nova Corps vault, seems to echo Raiders as well.)  Indeed, from the start, there is question of who Peter’s father is, and I wonder – now that Disney owns Lucasfilm as well – if Han Solo might be up for paternity.

That aside, on its own merits, Guardians is enthusiastically engaging, taking the “band of misfits” conceit and injecting it into the space opera genre in a way that seems effortless.  Comics devotees will be amazed at the breadth of concepts introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – the Celestials, the Nova Corps, the Kree – and for those who don’t know what those words mean, fear not, because Guardians delivers them with a deft expositional hand.  In short, Guardians works better than one might suspect because it immerses you in the fantastical world(s), explains quickly and capably what you need to know, and leaves you to wonder in slack-jawed awe at the rest. 

What Guardians does best, though, is characterization, especially through humor.  The movie is uproariously funny, even in places you might not expect.  All of it serves to give us characters that are astonishingly well-crafted, a double blessing for those of us who know next to nothing about them.  But where most of the characters’ personalities emerge through humor, as when we discover that Drax is incapable of understanding metaphor, director and co-writer James Gunn is careful to balance these gags with genuine moments where we sympathize with the characters.  Take for example the moment when a drunken Rocket Raccoon declares how he really feels about being the only one of his kind; it’s a surprisingly moving moment in the middle of a film where you wouldn’t expect it.  As fun as Thor: The Dark World was, I don’t remember feeling touched by it.

As much as the film links up to the broader Marvel Cinematic Universe, with its talk of Thanos (played well in a cameo by Josh Brolin, who is perfect in the part) and the Infinity Stones, I’m glad to hear that there’s already a sequel in the works, helmed once more by Gunn.  I’m glad, because here is a film that does many unexpected and wonderful things, a film which establishes its own identity without relying on anything more than the “Marvel” brand name.  The rumored appearance by Robert Downey Jr. does not occur, nor should it, because Guardians deserves to be its own thing before it lines up with The Avengers (as it inevitably will).  As fun as it would be to see Iron Man walk on screen, it might take the audience out of the mesmeric spectacle Gunn & Co. have crafted.  Come for the CGI walking talking foliage; stay for the heart and wit of a fresh direction and voice in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Guardians of the Galaxy is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language.”  Honestly, the action in it is roughly equivalent to most of the Star Wars films, with laser guns and explosions more than visceral gore; some bodies are pierced or thrown around, but even in one shot where a body is seriously maimed, it’s more limbs akimbo than bloody geysers.  There are a few defecatory profanities, one middle finger, and the occasional insult; overall, the grit is tempered by the wit.

We’re at ten Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, which sounds suspiciously like something ripe for organizing in ascending order of approval... could something like that be in your future?  Check back with us at the “Top” of next week to find out, and don’t forget that Thursday is the Double-Oh-Seventh of the month!

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

J.J. Abrams’s 2009 preboot Star Trek (which prequelized while simultaneously rebooting the Shatner era) was fresh and original, tons of fun even to a casual filmgoer like myself, who still doesn’t fully know the difference between a Trekkie and a Tribble.  Four years later, with Star Trek Into Darkness, Abrams retains that vivacious sense of fun, even if the originality quotient is a little lower this time around.

After some back-and-forth about command, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) takes the helm of the starship Enterprise with his trusted but emotionless first officer Spock (Zachary Quinto), who’s in a bit of a lover’s quarrel with communications lieutenant Uhura (Zoe Saldana).  The Enterprise crew is called into active duty after Starfleet Commander John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) declares a one-man war against the Federation.  Pursuing Harrison into Klingon space, Kirk and the crew confront dark secrets, the threat of their own mortality, and a full consideration of what it means to be a family.

Gut reaction?  This movie is an absolute blast.  It’s as exuberantly entertaining as a summer movie ought to be, delivering laughs and action in rapid succession without much filler.  From the opening scene, which seems to channel the temple run from Raiders of the Lost Ark, through deep-space combat and shifting gravity sprints, Star Trek Into Darkness is more a mad dash than a mere trek.

It’s engaging beyond expectation, in large part because of how stunning the visuals are.  Yes, those trademark Abrams lens flares are still omnipresent (and there’s at least one scene where they actually obstruct what we’re supposed to look at), but the stark illuminated interiors of the Enterprise have never looked better.  I’m not usually that guy, but:  the 3D IMAX on Star Trek Into Darkness is one of the best visual experiences in recent history, so I’d strongly recommend the upgrade.  This movie just looks good.

The other really great thing about Star Trek Into Darkness is the cast, ensemble at its best but with compelling centers.  Pine and Quinto redouble their efforts from the first film, especially Quinto, who does a deft job balancing cool Vulcan logic with half-human gestures toward emotion.  New faces Peter Weller and Alice Eve fit in well, though one suspects Eve was cast more for her lingerie physique than anything else (which is a shame, since her Carol Marcus is a fine foil for the womanizing Kirk).  And it’s a real treat to see Simon Pegg own the role of Scotty, very nearly stealing the show were it not for Benedict Cumberbatch, the face that launched a thousand Tumblrs.  As Harrison, Cumberbatch joins a long line of talented actors who play villains who soliloquize while in captivity amid hidden plans (see also Heath Ledger, Tom Hiddleston, Javier Bardem); as a complex villain with a semi-sympathetic backstory, Cumberbatch knows when to play the pathos card and when to nosh the scenery like it’s going out of style.

Without spoiling too much, though – and perhaps true believers want to skip this paragraph just in case – where the first film quite deliberately distanced itself from the original franchise, Star Trek Into Darkness wears its affiliation on its sleeve so transparently that even someone who’s never seen the earlier films (namely, me) can see the references a mile away.  For my money, the end result is an entertaining success – and a movie only has to be entertaining to get a good review from me – but the retreads only call attention to themselves, thereby pulling the audience out of the film, however briefly.  A cameo by Leonard Nimoy, though invited by the first film, is the first misstep in a train of callbacks that, again, are too unsubtle not to be cited here.  Longtime fans may relish these references; others may find them tedious and repetitive.  Again, it ends up working, but I can’t help but wonder what the writers might have devised had they fully unfettered themselves from their forebearers.

All told, Star Trek Into Darkness is a smash success of a summer movie, well worth those two hours and fistfuls of popcorn you won’t begrudge.  And in 3D IMAX, all the merrier.  Even if we have to wait through a five-year mission where no man et cetera et cetera, Star Trek 3 ought to be a real hoot.

Star Trek Into Darkness is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.”  Spaceships and lasers and fistfights, oh my.