The new Star Trek universe has had some major ups and downs. Coming right out of the gate with a bang, STAR TREK was a fantastic film. Not just for Star Trek fans, but for new fans as well. J.J. Abrams, for better and worse, made Star Trek a lot of fun. It put more emphasis on the spectacle rather than the science. This does cause some disappointment with long-time fans (rightfully so). But still, that first film is a solid 9/10.
The second Star Trek movie, INTO DARKNESS, was a real mess. What made it worse was the producers and Director J.J. Abrams himself lied to fans. The whole "It's not Khan" then it turns out that was a lie and it was Khan. While that itself doesn't really take away from the film, the film itself just doesn't make much sense. It's way too much spectacle for spectacle's sake and too little about the characters and focuses too much on nostalgia and "Hey, know how they did this in Star Trek before? Now we doing the same thing, but opposite." Just a mess and a movie I have no desire to revisit. 4/10
So that brings us to STAR TREK BEYOND. I was hesitant to say the least. I really didn't like the previous film and was worried this was going to be a one-off franchise trying to milk it as long as it possibly can like ICE AGE. Bringing aboard Justin Lin from the FAST AND FURIOUS franchise was a nice touch along with Simon Pegg on co-writing details. It made me cautiously optimistic about the film. Sure enough, it's light years BEYOND... sorry... ahead of STID, but it doesn't have that magic that the reboot had.
Half of BEYOND works incredibly while while the other half bounces between competent and messy. First thing that comes to mind is how beautiful the film looks. The visual detail is astounding. The nebulas, planets, spaceship interiors, all look great. The stand out visual piece was the space station called Yorktown -- kind of an odd name, but whatever. It reminded me of the Citadel from the Mass Effect series. A hub for the enterprise with a weird gravitational setup. While I understood why the Citadel basically used centripetal force to make its gravity the way it was, Yorktown just seemed kind of odd. Visually it's amazing. But the science side of me just questions the logic behind it. And when it kind of gets explained I guess it works, but I still am not sure if I buy it. But most of that was afterthought and when the movie was going on I just accepted it.
One major criticism by Trekkies is the new universe is trying too hard to be Star Wars. And if you don't understand what that means, it basically means they're turning more into action movies than science-fiction movies. And this criticism isn't wrong. Even though it's not as true as STID. For me, I'm all for it. It does need to smooth its direction out a little bit more, but it's getting a lot better. Most of the action set pieces are stunning. The main problem is when it gets to hand-to-hand combat. The series has had terrible fight sequences. They're just awful. BEYOND does nothing to help. In fact, it may be the worst. Every fight scene is shot way too close and way too shaky and cut way too quick to get a feel for what's going on. There is one fight scene that is decently shot, but it suffers from other problems. One of the new characters mentions a key moment of her past which sets up a fight with the main villain's right-hand. But because we have no idea who any of the villains are (more on this in a bit) when the time comes for this fight to happen I had no idea why it was so important. Then the characters have a face-to-face moment and mentions something and it clicks. But this is bad. When you have a character moment like this, a character facing the actual thing that has shaped who that character is to this point, you need to make the stakes completely clear BEFORE you get to the actual moment.
Which leads me to the problem with the villains. What the villains got right was their threat. These guys are not to be messed with. They will wreck you. Completely. It's a terrifying threat. Not just because they have the capability to completely destroy everything you own. But the ways they are able to do it are terrifying. And there's several ways some of the hero's fodder bite the dust. Let's face it, even with real threats, you know in a franchise like this the main characters are safe, even if you don't feel it in the moment. And this movie does that really well. Even though you KNOW Kirk and Spock and Chekov and Scottie, and everyone else are going to live. You still feel that tension. I'll call that a big plus for the villains.
However, the villains themselves, while intimidating, are really bland. Idris Elba is one of my favorite actors and I feel he is kind of wasted here. He does a fine job, but the character is so basic, and his backstory isn't revealed until so late, that I just didn't really care for him. I get him. I understand him (kinda). But I don't care. But that's fine because the threat he poses is real enough to be worried. Oh, and he has a bunch of henchmen. Two I think get names, but I couldn't tell you what they were. You won't really care anyway.
Side note: this may just be me, but every time they said the villain's name "Krall" I kept visualizing Pauly Shore... If you get why... *high five*
I also want to note the movie sometimes assumes things of its audience. There's a key point in the film where a main character has a revelation about another character because of a small detail. It seems like a complete stretch unless you know that that character is really good at that particular thing. I know that seems vague, but giving details would be a minor spoiler. But this is a detail not established in this film. It was a detail established 2 films ago. So unless you saw that film, and cared enough about that character to know that about them, this would seem like reaching. This could have been resolved if earlier in the film they had this character do this as part of that character's job then you'd be like "OK. That makes sense."
I know that seems like nit-picking, and it kind of is. But the movie has several small moments like this. While each individual moment isn't enough to knock the film too much, it does show either some lazy writing or just missing it in some proof reads.
Most importantly, though, the movie is a lot of fun. That was the main failings of STID, it was boring. Here, the characters are fun again. There's heart to the movie. You care about what's going on -- even if it does get illogical at times. And the movie is funny. Making Simon Pegg a writer was a brilliant move that gave so much life to this film. So many small, funny moments really bring life to the film. My favorite one being when they had Beastie Boys playing (which was relevant to the plot) one character asked "Is this classical music?" This is brilliant not just as a great joke, but it's great world-building.
STAR TREK BEYOND definitely takes steps in the right direction for this franchise even if it's not quite yet on the right path. It makes me rather excited for the next entry which is a relief given how I almost gave up after STID. A great popcorn flick for the summer despite some glaring flaws. Probably going to get this on Blu-ray when it comes out.
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