Star Trek: Into Darkness

We just got back from seeing Star Trek. There are some minor spoilers ahead, but nothing major.

I thought that was fabulous. The action was well-filmed and exciting, the plot had lots of twists and turns, including a couple that really caught me by surprise, and some great performances. J.J. Abrams best decision in his first Trek movie was the incredible cast and they continue to impress here. Really, there is no weak link in the cast. Plus, the addition of Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain with ambiguous motives gave the film the proper antagonist the first film lacked.

Since the events of the film's alternate universe are happening at the time of The Original Series' first season, I was hoping that they would make references to some of the events that happened to the Original Series' crew and I was very happy that they did. I also liked some very cool and unexpected easter eggs from the later Trek series, most notably DS9. This movie was reverent and smart about Trek history.

There are a couple of scenes in direct homage to events in the original timeline that I thought were a little too on the nose (Carol called one of them really corny) but they were done with respect. I also think J.J. Abrams needs to take some lessons on the scale of outer space. Earth isn't thirty seconds from Klingon space.

But other than a few nitpicks, I loved this. It surprised me, delighted me, and has a great ending, right where I want the next movie to start.

What did you think?