Well, I guess the problem was that the first Star Trek 'reboot' was very very good and a hard act to follow. This one is nowhere hear as good and seems to have been written to a rather restricted formula, probably by a committee. The wonderful inventiveness and cheeky wit of the previous movie have here been subsumed into a rather desperate nudge nudge wink wink that means there are no plot surprises, since the twists are clearly signalled well in advance, and (never thought I'd hear myself saying this!) the movie is a re-tread of the 1982 Star Trek II Wrath of Khan, only not as good. They literally took Spock's death scene out of that movie (spoiler alert, I know) and re-ran it with Kirk. So someone decided to simply raid the old Star Trek canon for plots that audiences used to like, and serve them with a couple of changes. Surely the whole point of the wonderfully iconoclastic let's-blow-up-history plot of the previous movie was that they didn't HAVE to stick to the canon any more but could be genuinely creative? The suits must have felt too nervous about bankrolling something actually new.

Benedict Cumberbatch was a surprisingly uncharismatic baddie, and it was appallingly violent in a way that made it difficult to retain one's sympathy for the 'good' guys. I can't imagine that this is going to generate the crucial repeat business that the previous movie did, and may signal doom for the franchise - I understand the US box office has been disappointing and the film hasn't broken even yet.

I was convinced that on a Friday night, the second day of release, the cinema would be packed, which was a good reason to book in advance. But the place was less than a quarter full: I hope that doesn't mean that the world is giving up on the wonders of the Star Trek universe, because this was a hugely enjoyable foray into that place.

Most of us are so deeply familiar with Star Trek that it would be difficult to imagine ourselves coming to this fresh; but my guess is that the film would stand up pretty well for people who knew nothing of the back story. For the rest of us, there were clever and well-woven quotations and mirror images from other films and television series, some of them very overt (after all, we're in a 'parallel reality' here).

In some ways this was a rather conventional action epic. I don't think I would be sued for spoilers if I say, that there is a good roster nick-of-time rescues; a fist-fight on the roof of a fast-moving vehicle (what they call an action movie 'trope', I think); and sparkly jumps into warp drive, which are precisely what 3D was meant for. There is of course also the usual rather high toll of hapless starfleet bods in red shirts, expendable in accordance with long tradition.

Messages about insidious international terrorism is laid on a bit thick in places, and the quantities of destruction and mayhem are high throughout. In fact, the level of violence was surprisingly high for a film of this rating, although not everything that was nasty actually appeared on the screen.

There are some odd little elements that don't seem to go anywhere (what precisely was the point of a two-second shot of Alice Eve in underwear?) some of which are probably hooks into the inevitable next film. But it is a very beautiful, well crafted film with entertaining and spectacular surprises, and not short of humour and wit either. Strongly recommended.