Star Trek In Darkness (2013)

I'm conflicted with this one.  In many ways this is a thrilling science fiction adventure with high quality visuals, wonderful acting and slick directing from J.J. Abrams.  On the other hand it's basically a tribute film, a fan-boy riff on the popular The Wrath of Khan.  Being an homage to a previous creation makes it dependent on that previous film.   To me that's what weakens this film and will keep it from standing apart as a film worthy of the Star Trek brand.  Instead of taking the franchise on an adventure where no one has gone before, we're given a terrorist drama without the element of exploration I had hoped to see.  It's especially disappointing after such a promising start where the crew must risk everything including the Prime Directive to keep a volcano from killing the inhabitants of a world.  Then the story becomes one of catching a bad guy instead of seeing new worlds.  In fact the Enterprises only travels to a Klingon world and back to Earth.   That's like a sea voyage film having the ship float from England to Paris and back again.  Boring.  Worse, we're supposed to become emotionally involved with a crew we've only seen one other time now.  I'm just supposed to accept that Spock and Kirk's relationship has been fully formed.  Add on top of that a bit of sexism and the original Spock showing up again for pointless anchoring from the previous time line and this one left me flat.  Sure, I'm a Star Trek fan but I'm not a purest and would love to see this new version become something great.  Change things up, break the rules, but please take me on an actual "trek" through space and deal with a conflict that's more intellectually stimulating than a baddie wanting to destroy the Federation.  It's a little frustrating to watch reruns of Star Trek the television show to find they're more engaging than the new film.  Grade: B