Star Trek Beyond (2016)

[MmzHrrdb]

Despite slightly underwhelming (though still highly profitable) box-office returns for Star Trek Into Darkness, a third addition to the reboot phase of the classic sci-fi series was quickly put into production. Eventually titled Star Trek Beyond (with the awkward neglected colon recurring once more), Justin Lin took the director's role for the project, replacing J.J. Abrams - who was busy with another popular space property - and Robert Orci who moved on to a producer part. Trekkies expressed concern that Lin's work in the Fast and Furious franchise would result in an un-Trek-like stunt show, though ultimately the film managed to stay relatively close to the tone and feel of the last two installments. Beyond does, however, take a dip in quality, lacking the effortless fun and excitement of either previous chapter.

While attempting to assist a captain separated from her crew, the Enterprise is overtaken by a villainous force that leaves Captain Kirk and various other members stranded on a nearby planet. The rest of the crew is being held captive by Krall, a power-hungry being in search of an ancient artifact. Kirk and co are thus forced to reunite and stop Krall from destroying the galaxy.

The story is as unremarkable as possible, relying on a destruction-bent villain to motivate our heroes to save the day. Unfortunately, the weakness of the story mirrors the underwhelming nature of the film itself. Beyond is a perfectly perfunctory addition to the Star Trek universe, but it fails to intrigue beyond its admittedly gorgeous visuals and somewhat tired character interactions.

The first eighty minutes are somewhat aimless, going through the motions and quips in a half-hearted manner, while lacking any kind of character arcs for most of the cast. This sort of awkward running about is made even less engaging by cutting between four ongoing stories as the scattered crew attempt to find each other. The last forty minutes do pick up a bit, with a couple pretty fun set-pieces (even if they're under nonsensically contrived circumstances), but by then, it's too little too late.

The script (written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung) is fairly mediocre, hindering the cast from doing much with their characters. Chris Pine does his cocky shtick, Zachary Quinto does his Spocky shtick, and Karl Urban does his doc-y shtick. Idris Elba gets quite a lot out of his underwritten antagonist, but not enough to keep him in long-term memory. The late Anton Yelchin frequently gets sidelined to make way for nothing of greater interest, and Simon Pegg struggles to bring many laughs from his own unimpressive screenplay.

Some of the more "hardcore" Star Trek purists will likely find enough to rant about here (surely some cynical critic has coined the term "Star Trek BeYAWNd" by now), but Star Trey Beyond is still passable Summer fare. It's not so much unpleasant as it is simply unremarkable. While it amuses for most of its two-hour runtime, it rarely engages beyond its shiny surface. The wild enthusiasm of JJ Abrams' 09 reboot darkened a bit for its sequel. But Beyond's lighter tone does not see that initial enthusiasm return. Rather, one gets the feeling that everyone involved is just a bit tired of this final frontier, and would possibly be better served if left alone for a few more (light)years.

Score: 6/10

[djross]

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[MmzHrrdb]

More or less on the money in locating the weaknesses, but, in my view, still much too generous...

I didn't find it as unredemptive as you did, but I agree that it totally discards most of what Abrams accomplished and that the film is worse for it. Still, it held my attention, and that's enough for me to put it ahead of other recent blockbusters (namely Civil War), but that's a disappointingly low standard for the franchise.

And also, while I slightly agree with your complaint about the visual darkness (early on I found this to be especially true), I can forgive it since most of the later action bits occur on brightly-lit locations (like Endor II and Tomorrowland/Coruscant).

Thanks for reading!

[djross]

I note the precipitous 60% drop in box office compared to its first weekend. Word of mouth is not helping this movie, I would suggest. Bad script, bad director, bad movie.

[MmzHrrdb]

I note the precipitous 60% drop in box office compared to its first weekend. Word of mouth is not helping this movie, I would suggest. Bad script, bad director, bad movie.

That, and this movie's business is extremely front-loaded being a sequel from a semi-popular franchise. Supposedly there's another Star Trek film in the making, but I imagine it will have to be made with a much smaller budget. Which might be good for the franchise actually.