Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

What a mess.

spoilers

On one hand, I really enjoyed the 2009 Star Trek reboot, and in many ways they simply applied the same formula with a different villain in Star Trek Into Darkness, so why did I dislike this film so much? 

Well, while the 2009 film had a mostly dumb plot, it got a pass because:

1. it looked beautiful, 
2. I was absolutely charmed by the ability of the cast to fill the very big shoes of the original cast (with the exceptions of Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin, who never quite settled into being Scotty and Chekov), with special kowtowing to Karl Urban's amazing portrayal of McCoy,
3. it's the "origin story" movie, so it's expected to be a little slower in order to establish characters

Once the main characters are established in the "origin story", however, the second act needs to take those characters and run.  Look at The Empire Strikes Back; The Dark Knight; Behemoth; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (wait, bad example).  STID drags from movie A with Kirk breaking rules to movie B with some guy's dying daughter and a stranger who wants to him, back to movie A with Kirk losing the Enterprise even though his actions have a perfectly reasonable explanation, back to movie B where the guy with the dying daughter blows some place up.  This is all so that the mysterious stranger can try to kill Starfleet high command, but he seems to only manage to kill Pike** and then he flees to the Klingon homeworld.  Marcus tries to set up Kirk to kill the mysterious stranger with some new type of missile that will set off a war between the Klingons and the Federation, but the mysterious stranger gives himself up (and reveals that he's Khan) when he realizes he's being threatened with 72 missiles.

STID actions are illogical and don't have meaningful consequences.  Is Khan actually working with Marcus prior to this moment, and he realizes he's being double-crossed?  I can't think of any other reason why he'd go to the Klingon homeworld.  Kirk loses his ship for being a loose cannon and regains it 10 minutes later; Kirk dies and is brought back to life 10 minutes later; and on and on.

I do have to admit that when Sarahmac pegged Alice Eve's haircut as Dehner's, we began to fall in love with the idea that the producers weren't being coy about whether Cumberbatch was going to play Khan, because he was playing Gary Mitchell, and they'd rewritten "Where No Man Has Gone Before" with a stronger plot and better special effects.  Instead... well, instead, I'm trying to look upon the bright side, which is that Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin seem to have figured out their roles, the rest of the cast still nailed their characters, and Karl Urban is still amazing.

** this is a waste.  Killing Pike here is like killing Apollo Creed in Rocky IV; it's a ham-fisted reason for us to hate Ivan Drago / Khan.