I’m just going to start right off the bat and say Star Trek Beyond is the best summer offering this year so far. This year has been rather stale since X-Men: Apocalypse (a most divisive movie, I know) in that it hasn’t had much that could be enjoyed by action fans (especially if you took in Independence Day: Resurgence. Ugh!) So I ventured to the recent in-theater Star Trek marathon to re-visit the new offerings from director/producer J.J. Abrams. His first was a nice re-vamp splintered off the original timeline. The sequel Into Darkness was ¾ a decent film brought down by terrible rehashes of previous stories in the final quarter.
Due to tepid fan response to the second film and the fact that Abrams himself had moved on to the Star Wars franchise, director Justin Lin was recruited after his work on Furious 7 to bring serious activity and fast-paced style to the screenplay written by Doug Jung and actor Simon Pegg, who was a long-time fan of the Star Trek franchise and had been putting in a nice rendition of engineer Montgomery Scott in these reboots.
There had been some interesting trailers leading up to the release of this film with unusual cadences and music choices for a movie in this franchise. Also, there had been relatively little promotion of this new movie being released in the 50th anniversary year of Star Trek, which got people worried a bit. So when it came down to it, would this movie deliver the goods?
Very much so I have to say as we start the film off with Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) attempting to handle peace negotiations with a new race using an artifact given to him by a prior race. It… doesn’t quite go as planned so Kirk beams back for some interesting consultations with Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) before ordering the Enterprise to a new and very large starbase the Federation has built on the edge of known space. While there, we see indications of the personal lives of other crew members such as Sulu (John Cho) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana). Kirk and Spock however, each have personal news which may affect their future on the Enterprise.
All this gets put on hold when an alien female comes from a nearby asteroid-filled nebula in uncharted space, requesting help to get back home. Kirk and his crew are volunteered to take her back to her planet and almost immediately, the Enterprise is assaulted by a previously unknown race led by the merciless Krall (Idris Elba). With their ship destroyed and their people scattered, the crew must find a way to get back to Federation space and learn some interesting stuff during their ordeal.
I have to say, after the Into Darkness movie I was one of the naysayers regarding this franchise and was afraid more uninspiring works were going to be coming. With Lin and Pegg taking over, this was thankfully not the case. There’s a tremendous sense of adventure going into the unknown, which The Original Series and its sequels were regarded for. That’s been brought back big time with this film. Unfamiliar races and an actual enjoyment for showing these characters abilities in unfamiliar situations…. Those are the biggest strengths of Beyond. The movie does feel very much in the spirit of previous Trek lore, especially as the finally battle begins.
There are some amusing aspects though such as the movie’s use of music. I’m glad to see someone decided to acknowledge other genres besides classical and rock in Earth’s history (which I guess would all be considered classical at this point. Hmm…) Still, the anime fan in me wishes they would’ve used some Lynn Minmay songs at one point, but I digress… Also, we get the inclusion of a new character named Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) whom I hope we get to see more of in the future.
The last element I must address regarding this movie is the respect it gives to recently departed Trek figures, Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin. Nimoy’s depiction of Spock is memorialized at several key moments throughout the film, especially in a perfect one near the conclusion. As to Yelchin, it really is both a treat to see him shine with boyish enthusiasm as Pavel Chekov and a painful reminder of how much his presence with the current team will be missed due to his death.
All in all, if I were to rank every Star Trek film produced to this point, I think I would place it in a tie for third next to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and just below The Wrath of Khan and the first JJ Abrams reboot. This is a very solid piece or work that’s a tremendous amount of on-screen fun, showing just how well-suited these actors and producers are to bringing us new, faithful adventures of Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise to new viewers on the franchise’s 50th Anniversary. Highly recommended.
Grade: B+ / A-