Story
When a mission involving the Enterprise and its crew ends in disaster, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) loses command of the Enterprise. He’s reassigned as first officer to Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), his old mentor.After a secret Starfleet installation is destroyed by a bomb attack, Kirk and Pike are called to attend a meeting of high-ranking officers at Starfleet headquarters. The meeting ends in disaster when a rogue agent named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) uses a gunship to attack Starfleet headquarters. He kills several officers including Pike. In retribution for the attack, Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) authorises Kirk to hunt down Harrison, who has fled to the Klingon home world of Qo’noS. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise travel to Qo’noS. After a short but violent encounter with a party of Klingons, Kirk, Mr Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Lt Uhura (Zoe Saldana) apprehend Harrison. But then things get complicated.It turns out that Harrison is really a genetically engineered superhuman named Khan. Along with 72 other genetically engineered superhumans (Khan’s crew), Khan has been imprisoned in cryogenic sleep for 300 years for trying to destroy the inferior human race. Admiral Marcus thawed Khan and forced him to use his superior intellect to develop advanced war machines to be employed against the Klingons. Admiral Marcus used Khan’s cryogenically frozen crew as hostages.Kirk must join forces with Khan to defeat the real villain of the story, Admiral Marcus. Fortunately, Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise survive both Admiral Marcus’s and Khan’s treachery and win the day. The final moments of the movie see Kirk, Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew heading off into deep space on a five-year mission to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Themes
Genetic engineering, superhumans; war and weapons; conspiracy; friendship and loyalty
Violence
Star Trek into Darkness has science fiction action violence and danger throughout. Although there isn’t much blood and gore, there is a high body count and the movie has several scenes that show mass destruction. For example:
Sexual references
None of concern
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
This movie shows some use of substances. For example:
- There are a couple of bar scenes with people drinking alcohol. One scene shows a main character in a fairly drunk state.
- One scene shows a father injecting what looks like blood into his sick child’s IV.
Nudity and sexual activity
This movie has some nudity and sexual activity. For example:
- One brief scene shows Kirk waking up in bed with two alien women. They look human except that they have cat-like tails. The two women wear bikini-style underwear.
- In a bar scene there is a very brief image of two aliens kissing. They’re humanoid but have reptilian faces and long lizard-like tongues that stick out of their mouths and entwine.
- A female character asks Kirk to turn around so she can undress. When Kirk turns around and looks at the woman, she is wearing only her underwear.
Product placement
None of concern
Coarse language
There is some coarse language in this movie.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Star Trek Into Darkness is a thrilling and visually stunning science fiction action adventure with fantastic special effects. This movie has the whole cast from the 2009 Star Trek movie, but secondary characters such as Sulu, Scotty and Chekov make only token appearances. Instead the movie focuses on the relationship between Kirk, Spock and Khan.
The movie will entertain and satisfy its target audience, and Star Trek fans won’t be disappointed. But the movie is best suited to children over 15 years because of its violence, scary scenes and coarse language.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include staying true to your beliefs. For example, the movie shows that there are always people who want to harm others. But when you try to stop them, you have to be careful that you don’t become like them.
This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life issues such as the following:
- Self-sacrifice: both Kirk and Spock are willing to sacrifice their lives for the safety of their friends and the greater good.
- Friendship, acceptance and tolerance: although Kirk and Spock are very different, their friendship is so strong that they can accept and tolerate those differences even though there’s a high cost for this.
- Kirk’s reckless manner, attitude and behaviour and the real-world consequences: in the movie, Kirk doesn’t obey rules or take responsibility for his reckless behaviour. Several times this behaviour could have – and in real life probably would have – ended in disaster.