Review: 'Star Trek Into Darkness' both funny and thoughtful

"Star Trek Into Darkness," the second installment of the rebooted "Star Trek" series — depicting the early careers of Kirk, Spock and the whole Enterprise crew — has the self-consciousness of a sequel.

The last film had an amazing opening sequence, showing the birth of Captain Kirk and the death of his father.

[...] in "Star Trek Into Darkness" they try to top it, by beginning the movie with Kirk on the run from the primitive, makeup-wearing natives of a doomed planet.

Yet every time "Star Trek Into Darkness" looks as though it's about to retreat behind the wall of silly, something happens that surprises, or delights, or demonstrates the filmmaker's genuine knowledge of and affection for these characters.

An interplanetary terrorist organization, run by John Harrison — a mysterious and icy-cold superman (Benedict Cumberbatch), detonates a bomb at the Federation's London archive.

"Star Trek Into Darkness" is a straight-up summer action movie, and so it's rather interesting and surprising to see how willing director J.J. Abrams and the screenwriters are to go beyond the good guy-bad guy thing and look at some gray areas.