Sequel to the first reboot, again directed by Jar Jar Abrams. The characters are just as strong as before (even if the Spock/Uhura romance fails to convince and Spock can be both emotional and emotionless as the story requires), but the plot is somewhat tortured. It’s not entirely clear what the motivations of the villain are and parts of the story just don’t make sense. Even the title is bafflingly random.
Some of the dialogue is a little clichéd, which is a shame because a better script could have lifted this out of “adequate sci-fi thriller” mode and let these interesting characters develop further.
Leonard Nimoy appears one last time (he died in 2015) although seemingly just to appeal to the fans. There are many other reference points apparently thrown in as crowd-pleasers (Khan, Tribbles, etc). As with the Star Wars sequels, you wonder why they have to endlessly rehash old ideas rather than creating new mythology and iconography of their own.
Despite amazing visuals, some thrills and some welcome humour (mainly from Simon Pegg’s Scotty), it doesn’t work quite as well as the first film. And once again it frustratingly ends where the TV series begins, with the crew about to “explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before” (although “no man” has now become “no one”). Odd that it has taken two films to get to this point.
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