Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise . Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

If you want a slam-bang action adventure thriller, this is it. If you want Star Trek, that’s questionable. All the characters are here in their youthful versions. The acting is very good and the special effects are fantastic.

I have a confession. When I’m in the midst of non-stop action, I lose interest. I got very tired of the slam bang nonstop action here. Others I’ve talked to enjoyed it for that reason so it’s a matter of taste.

What is more troubling is the lack of the “feel” of Star Trek despite all the references. Having seen (and reviewed)Star Trek Nation where the son of Gene Roddenberry was amazed and moved by how much the Star Trek series had meant to people, I can’t help comparing Star Trek into Darkness. The originals, whatever their flaws, conveyed a feeling of hope, of optimism, of mankind’s capacity “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” That is absent from this movie once it settles into the cliché of “There’s this evil bad guy villain who must be defeated.” Happily, at the very end, the youthful Kirk gives a speech where he at last talks about the true purpose of the Enterprise which is “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” This gives hope the next movie will take the superb special effects on a voyage of discovery without the good guys vs bad guys clichés. I am an eternal optimist.

Meantime, if you’re looking for a forgettable but extremely well done action adventure that brings back all the familiar characters, then Star Trek Into Darkness will work for you.