Star Trek: Beyond
Directed by: Justin Lin.
Written by: Simon Pegg & Doug
Jung based on the television series by Gene Roddenberry.
Starring: Chris Pine (Captain
James T. Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Commander Spock), Karl Urban (Doctor 'Bones'
McCoy), Zoe Saldana (Lieutenant Uhura), Simon Pegg (Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott),
John Cho (Sulu), Anton Yelchin (Chekov), Idris Elba (Krall), Sofia Boutella (Jaylah),
Joe Taslim (Manas), Lydia Wilson (Kalara), Deep Roy (Keenser), Melissa Roxburgh
(Ensign Syl), Anita Brown (Tyvanna), Doug Jung (Ben), Danny Pudi (Fi'Ja), Kim
Kold (Zavanko), Fraser Aitcheson (Hider), Shohreh Aghdashloo (Commodore Paris),
Greg Grunberg (Commander Finnegan).
The
third installment of the re-booted Star Trek franchise is a necessary and
welcome course correction after Into Darkness, which spent way too much time on
fan service, which robbed the movie of its powerful moments because they were
so reliant on what came before the movie itself, that if you didn’t already
know a lot about the franchise the big reveals became meaningless. I liked Into
Darkness more than a lot of people – it is generally an entertaining and
pleasing action movie, but it wasn’t as good as it could have been. The same
can be said of the third installment – I liked it a great deal, had a lot of
fun watching it, but it isn’t quite as good as it could have been. Its failures
are less pronounced than Into Darkness’ however – and the filmmakers seem to
realize that whatever fan service the series does has to be secondary to the
main thrust of the plot of the current movie. One could walk into Star Trek: Beyond
not knowing a lot about Star Trek, and end up having a good time with it. It’s
failures are more generic – action sequences that rely too much on shaky camera
work and rapid fire editing (and one that is so dark that I found it almost
incomprehensible – and wearing the 3-D glasses didn’t help), a villain whose
motivations are kept vague far too long, and then instead of giving him depth,
instead decides on a third act twist, an action finale that, while fun, is derivative.
None of this sinks Star Trek: Beyond – for the most part it is a satisfying
movie, with a hell of a cast that helps to paper over the thinness of the
screenplay – and flaws that bug me are more of the type that do so upon
reflection, not really in the moment. I’m sure there will be a fourth entry in
this re-booted franchise, and it would be wise to follow this film’s lead,
rather than Into Darkness’ – but I want it to delve deeper than it has so far.
The characters are fascinating, and have hidden depth, that the filmmakers seem
to abandon far too often to have another action sequence.
The
story here is about a rescue mission the crew of the Enterprise is sent on –
they’ll be heading into deep space, where they will not be able to communicate
with the rest of the federation, to retrieve a lost crew who crash landed on a
seemingly empty planet. They don’t even get to that planet however, when they
are attacked by a swarm of small ships, that move that a horde of insects which
are able to evade the weapons on the enterprise. The ship crashes, and the crew
is scattered on the planet below. Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho) and most
of the crew are being held by a madman, Krall (Idris Elba), who want a weapon
the enterprise was carrying. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Bones
(Karl Urban), Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Scottie (Simon Pegg) – are the only
ones not captured, and hence have to find a way to rescue the crew, retrieve
the weapon and save the day – which they attempt to do with the help of a
survivor of a previous crew, Jayla (Sofia Boutella).
This
is much more a stand-alone story than Into Darkness was – perhaps like a
special two part episode of the TV series, although one far heavier on action
than the series ever was (not that I much of a Trekkie, so I’m hardly an expert
on this stuff). The stakes of the movie – at least until the finale – are refreshingly
low – there’s no talk about the world ending, or cities being destroyed, etc.
for the majority of its runtimes, which is at least one cliché the movie avoids
(the climax, unfortunately, does devolve into some of this – but there’s at
least very little talk of it, and the final action climax is just two people
engaged in hand-to-hand combat, so at least it’s not just a bunch of crap crashing
into each other, which I’ve seen far too much of this summer already). The film
is directed by Justin Lin – JJ Abrams, who directed the first two in this franchise
decamped for Star Wars – and Lin is as good a choice as any. He directed 4 of
the Fast and Furious movies, so he knows how to do action sequences, and do
them well – although disappointingly, none of them in this film rival the best
moments in the Fast & Furious franchise he is responsible for. The
highlight is undeniably the initial attack on the enterprise, which comes
unexpectedly (you could say, it comes on Fast and Furious) – and doesn’t overstay
its welcome. A secondary highlight is the finale, gravity defying, hand-to-hand
combat finale – although that’s somewhat marred by Scottie’s constant yelling
about a ticking clock timeline. The other action sequences – including a
reprise of those small fighters late in the film, are mostly forgettable – too reliant
as they are on shaky camera work and rapid fire editing (and in one case, far
too much darkness) rendering much of it incomprehensible. I’m still old-school
in my action sequence likes – preferring the smooth camera work of a John Woo
or Michael Mann – both of whom understand how to use space, to make it clear to
the audience what the hell is happening.
The
reason to see the movie remains the cast – who even when they are not given
characters deep enough to fully explore, do a good job making you care about
them anyway. This is a movie that reveals, early, that both Kirk and Spock are
planning on leaving the Enterprise – for different reasons, although neither
reveal their plans to the other. Both are valid reasons – and are set up in
interesting ways. Kirk is growing tired of constantly being on the move, of
exploring new worlds to try and bring them into federation – and if the
Universe is infinite, there will never be an endpoint. He’s also still trying
to live up to his father’s legacy. He wants out. Spock feels guilt about
surviving the destruction of his home planet of Vulcan, and thinks he needs to
help out his own people – something brought on stronger by the death of his
alternate universe self, who was an ambassador. The movie sets both of these
things up – and then abandons them for the bulk of the movie, before disposing
of them too quickly at the end. Still, Pine and Quinto, do good work as Kirk
and Spock – their dynamic together works. Karl Urban is given slightly more to
do as Bones, and he makes the most of it. Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the
screenplay, certainly gives his Scottie more to do, and more laugh lines, than
normal – but he’s so much fun every time he’s on screen you really don’t care.
The two new comers to the cast – Idris Elba as Krell and Sofia Boutella as
Jayla, are also in fine form. Krell is an underwritten villain – in part
because the film wants to keep his motivations under wraps for too long, yet
even under all that makeup (and, likely, CGI) Elba is a commanding screen
presence, making him a terrifying and insane leader. Boutella is amusing as
Jayla – and also a kickass heroine, which I suppose at least partly makes up
for the film shunting Uhura aside for much of the action. (By the way, they don’t
give the late, great Anton Yelchin all that much to do as Chekov – but he was
always one of my favorites in this cast anyway – and remains so here).
Star
Trek: Beyond is certainly a flawed (there’s that dreaded “critics” word, as
overused as “problematic” – but sometimes fitting). This is a franchise that
seems to be stuck trying to do two things at once – trying to be more of the
hard(ish) sci-fi and character based narrative of the original series, while at
the same time delivering the huge, special effects driven action set pieces all
studios assume every audience wants in every summer movie. They still haven’t quite
gotten that balance right – but they’re getting closer at least.
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