It may lack the existential dread of a bona-fide sci-fi classic, but 'Star Trek Into Darkness,' the 12th feature based on a television show canceled 45 years ago, is certainly one lavish pop confection. Noisy, frenetic, grandiose and essentially a soap opera, director J.J. Abrams's second contribution to the franchise has everything, including romance: Never before have Capt. James T. Kirk and his Vulcan antagonist, Mr. Spock, seemed so very much in love.

Illogical, Spock might say. Perhaps. But the unutterable affection between the two is an indication of why Mr. Abrams's cheeky approach has thus far worked so well. Even when it lampooned various trademarks of the original series -- Mr. Spock's emotion-free personality, Kirk's cowboy inclinations, the bromance that dare not speak its name -- Mr. Abrams's 2009 'Star Trek' was reverential. Likewise, 'Into Darkness,' which trades in the same tropes, boasts characters that are beginning to look like very respectful caricatures, and asks where else can Mr. Abrams possibly go. (Yes, yes, 'Where no man has gone . . .' etc., etc.)

'Into Darkness' doesn't really have to go anywhere. Villainy comes to call. The Enterprise has returned to Earth from a planet-saving mission to a volcanic world where Kirk, once again, disobeyed the Federation's Prime Directive (i.e., no interference with the normal development of an alien civilization). He has been duly turned in by the officious Mr. Spock, who fails to understand his captain's froth when Kirk is demoted and his ship taken away.

In London, where St. Paul's squats reassuringly amid a forest of CGI 'Blade Runner' buildings, evil is afoot. A suicide bombing has brought together the Federation brass, but it's only a ruse: Having gotten them all in one place, the seemingly invincible, genetically modified archvillain John Harrison (an imperious Benedict Cumberbatch) launches a lethal attack and a determined agenda of revenge.

The Abrams 'Star Treks' are 'prequels' to the original series created by Gene Roddenberry, which hit the NBC airwaves in 1966, and was gone by the middle of 1969. It took 10 years, but what eventually ensued was a veritablemeteorshower of sequels, series and spinoffs. The stroke of cynicalgenius in the 2009 'Star Trek' screenplay by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (who also wrote 'Into Darkness' with Damon Lindelof) was having the original Mr. Spock change the past, providing the younger Enterprisers a destiny clear of historical imperatives. This relieved Mr. Abrams and his crew of the need to conform to a time-space continuum set up by 10 previous movies and four TV shows. It also deprived Trekkies the opportunity to scream 'gotcha' every time the new movies violated continuity. They don't seem to have minded.

But again, this is because the new 'Star Trek' mixes mischief with respect, and spot-on casting. Chris Pine makes the roguish James Tiberius Kirk a charismatic swashbuckler, always willing to bend a rule. Mr. Spock is played, blessedly, by the drily funny Zachary Quinto. Zoe Saldana is a smolderingly businesslike Uhura. A newcomer to the cast is Alice Eve as science officer Carol Marcus, who incites Mr. Spock's jealousy and Kirk's libido. The others are equally well used, and while the action is often electric, it's the relationships that matter. That, and a lippy regard for a cultural legacy.

'Sometimes I want to rip the bangs off his head,' Kirk says to Mr. Spock's on-again/off-again girlfriend, Uhura, who is having her own problems with the Vulcan. ('Are you guys fighting?' Kirk asks her, breathlessly. 'What's that even like?') Revealing that the half-human Mr. Spock actually has emotions is a device as old as 'Star Trek' itself; 'Spock Cries,' at this point, feels less fresh than 'Garbo Speaks.' But Hollywood makes movies for children, and nothing better represents the comfort of the oft-told fairy tale than 'Star Trek,' even in IMAX 3-D.