( EW.com ) -- `` Star Trek Into Darkness '' opens on a primitive planet , where the natives are restless and a volcano , in mid-eruption , traps First Officer Spock ( Zachary Quinto ) over a boiling ocean of lava . Naturally , the Vulcan stays cool as a cucumber , ready to die to save his crew -- an impeccably logical decision that also happens to be the compassionate one . But Capt . James T. Kirk ( Chris Pine ) , commander of the U.S.S . Enterprise , has other ideas . He 'll rescue Spock , even if that means violating a Federation rule that says the Enterprise ca n't be exposed to the planet 's uncivilized hordes . Kirk , who never met a regulation he could n't trash , guides the starship up into the air and over to where his comrade is about to perish , and the white-mud-caked warriors stare at the ship as if it were a god . It 's a sensation that the movie transmits to the audience , since the Enterprise , emitting an awesome thrummm , never looked quite so massive or looming . Will crowd-funding a 'Friday Night Lights ' movie work ? Four years ago , director J.J. Abrams rebooted the `` Star Trek '' franchise with great swagger by treating the launch film as a unique pop culture origin story . The movie was all about how the Enterprise crew first came together , but really it was about how Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto rose up to become those superheroes of yore , Kirk and Spock , by echoing the looks , voices , and personalities of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy just enough , while still making the roles their own . The two actors now really have a chance to get their Kirk and Spock on . Pine , with ice blue eyes and lips that dance on the edge of a smirk , does something marvelously clever : He evokes Shatner 's hamminess by underplaying it . And Quinto makes the glowering , dagger-browed Spock almost fiercely withholding . `` Into Darkness '' provides room for these actors to deepen their interplay . The movie has an often sinister grandeur , but the images never overpower the human ( or Vulcan ) factor . Like Abrams ' first `` Trek '' movie , this one is positioned as a prequel to the original TV series and subsequent films , though it also lifts ( and twists ) elements from that sacred text , 1982 's `` Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan . '' Kirk and Spock , each following his own nature ( one 's a hothead , the other a detached brainiac ) , are usually at loggerheads . Even when they wind up coming to the same conclusion they ca n't stop arguing about how they got there , and that 's part of the movie 's texture of cocky one-upmanship . 'The Bling Ring ' : Cannes review . The whole Enterprise crew has become a collection of colliding egos . Zoë Saldana 's Uhura , who 's in the middle of a lovers ' quarrel with Spock ; John Cho as the so-stoic-he's-cool Sulu ; Simon Pegg 's frantically funny and resourceful Scotty — these characters pop out at us with a new dynamism . And they all confront a villain who has been brilliantly retrofitted to throw everyone , including the audience , off-guard . This dastardly dude is a boyish-looking terrorist named John Harrison , who starts off by striking a note of urban chaos . But it 's not long before he 's revealed to be — how can I say this ? — a foe familiar to Trekkies , with a concealed agenda and 70 of his comrades cryogenically frozen in photon-torpedo capsules . He 's played by rising British star Benedict Cumberbatch in a totally original way , with the physicality of a dancer and an eager , puckish sincerity that ingeniously disguises his vengeful mission . Once Harrison 's been captured and placed in a cell , Kirk has to listen to his own hunches about who this man is and what he wants . That 's the real `` darkness '' the film 's title is referring to : the place where you 're no longer certain of the right thing . And that 's a place of genuine excitement . Intergalactic fashion finds . `` Into Darkness '' is a sleek , thrilling epic that 's also a triumphantly witty popcorn morality play . It 's everything you could want in a `` Star Trek '' movie . Grade : `` A '' See the original story at EW.com . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . © 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
Richard Abrams revived the ` ` Star Trek '' franchise with Voyager in 2009 . The sequel ` ` Into Darkness '' gives the actors more time to get deep into their roles . The movie has an often sinister tone , but that never overpowers the human factor .