Star Trek Beyond Review
Reboots are all the rage in Hollywood at the moment with varying degrees of success. The 2009 Star Trek reboot got off to a great start, a thrilling origin story with a charismatic cast. 2013’s ‘Into Darkness’ brought much of the same thrills but poor character development hindered the plot. Now with ‘Star Trek Beyond’ and a new director in the driving seat, it’s time to boldly go where no man has gone before. Or in the case of ‘Beyond’, to boldly go where we’ve already been before.
The biggest issue that the Star Trek series faces is ensuring that it retains it’s uniqueness while appealing to the masses. Unfortunately, the elements that make Star Trek so great have been stripped away leaving behind a somewhat generic action movie. It’s a good movie, just not a good Star Trek movie.
The film opens with the crew three years into a five year mission with Kirk (Chris Pine) wondering how he can become his own man. Spock (Zachary Quinto) on the other hand, is wanting to leave the Federation to have babies. Two interesting storylines which are frustratingly thrown to the sidelines in favour of action set pieces. Somehow by the end of the movie, both of these issues are resolved with the most minimal soul searching. How does Kirk become his own man throughout this movie when his actions are no different to those taken in the previous movie? Did Spock just stop feeling broody all of a sudden? It’s frustrating to see so little character development take place when the potential is there. I left the cinema feeling cheated of a proper story.
In regards to the secondary cast, I’m glad that we got to see more of Bones (Karl Urban) and how he fits within the Enterprise crew. Poor Uhura (Zoe Saldana) however is relegated to standing in the background in most scenes with a couple of lines here and there. Nothing she did was necessary or drove the plot forward in any way. Scotty (Simon Pegg) spends much of the film with alien newcomer Jaylah (Sofia Boutella). Jaylah is an interesting character but her storyline is half baked. Once she helps them get off the planet, her storyline is kind of done.
And then there’s the plot. It all starts off well enough. A rescue mission into uncharted nebula only to be attacked by a huge swarm of ships. But it’s when the crew crash land that the story begins to fall apart. We know they were attacked by Krall (Idris Elba) but why? What’s his motive? Is he just really evil or is there a story there? There is but director Lin takes far too long getting us to that point. We don’t actually find out Krall’s drive for wanting to destroy the Federation until three quarters into the movie. It’s far too late in the game to develop the villain further so we’re left with yet another one-note villain. This is a common issue in many blockbuster movies today and Hollywood really needs to address it. The villains need to be given the same level of depth as the heroes otherwise it’s all just a bit stale.
Once the crew escape the planet, the action ratches up a notch as our heroes attempt to stop Krall from destroying a major Federation base. It’s just unfortunate that one of the scenes in this final act is one of the cheesiest things I have ever seen. Destroying Krall’s thousands of drones by blasting Beastie Boys at them? Really?! It’s as if a group of out of touch studio executives sat around a table and said ‘what’s hip and cool?’. I cringed at the entire scene. Furthermore, this scene is at a crucial part of the plot with millions of lives at risk and the entire scene is designed to make you laugh. It’s important to include light-hearted elements into a story to prevent it from becoming too dark but the placing of said comedy is really off here.
Did I enjoy Star Trek Beyond? Sure. There was plenty of action, some great CG and the cast are as charismatic as ever. But I didn’t leave the cinema thinking ‘that was awesome’, instead I felt a bit deflated. The whole thing just felt beige. There was nothing about this movie that pushed the boundaries of the franchise, it was all incredibly safe. And with the Star Trek movies all feeling very episodic, they are going to have to do a lot better if they want the franchise to keep going. Another movie like that, I’ll probably just wait for the blu-ray.
This review was originally posted on Liam’s Life.
I also have an unhealthy obsession with US TV shows such as Buffy, How To Get Away With Murder and RuPaul's Drag Race.
