Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

84% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 191 reviews)

Runtime: 122 minutes

Directed by: Justin Lin

Starring: The typical crew, plus people like Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella and Joe Taslim

From: Paramount

I saw this movie last night, and I am glad it was something I enjoyed, as I really don't like Star Trek Into Darkness. Below in my Letterboxd review, I explain why I felt that way:

I've mentioned it in other reviews but to be brief, while I am not a hardcore Trekkie (or Trekker) I watched The Original Series as a kid and saw the first six movies in the franchise at least once and usually a handful of times each. The 2009 reboot I enjoyed despite some faults but Into Darkness was pretty bad, an illogical mess that represented the worst of modern Hollywood blockbusters. Despite a new director and new writers, I wasn't sure what I would think of this. Thankfully, despite it being ridiculous-some moments probably won't hold up to scrutiny-the all too common trend of some action scenes not being done as well as they should, and some moments I'll just describe as “polarizing”-especially with one moment in particular, I imagine a segment won't laugh in disbelief like I did and instead it'll leave them fuming-the picture was something I still thought was fun and entertaining.

Thankfully this was a 180 from Into Darkness even when it came to spoilers; while I thought Into Darkness would still be a bad movie even if I hadn't had some key things spoiled beforehand, I am glad I went into this cold aside from halfway paying attention to the trailers... which of course were misleading, but that's a problem with too many trailers in recent years; they either reveal too much or inaccurately present a movie all for the sake of getting a customer's cash no matter what; it's gross but a giant rant about it will have to come at another time. I won't spoil anything myself so I'll just briefly mention that it's a story about the Enterprise exploring uncharted areas and trying to foster peace among all the sentient species they come across. They experience trouble, led by Idris Elba, and there's a young lady who wears white paint... why she does so is never really explained, come to think of it...

Like I said, this movie is fun. There's a sense of adventure in exploring alien (in every sense of the word) new worlds & between that and a positive outlook (quite different from the dour Into Darkness) it seems appropriate when you compare it to The Original Series. The villains, both in the way they operate and why Elba (as Krall) acts the way they are are different from the norm and aren't the same old same old, which is a relief these days. All the main people on the Starship Enterprise get a decent amount of time (including the late Anton Yelchin as Chekov) so those characters have their moments to shine. As for the new people introduced here, it is nice to see that there's further diversity aside from the diversity that the franchise always had since The Original Series; they include an Indonesian martial artist-actor, a black man from the UK, and a woman born in Algeria. Unfortunately, such a multi-ethnic and multi-racial cast in a big Hollywood movie is exceedingly rare.

The movie happens to look nice too so I am glad I watched it on a giant screen; the 3D image was at times too dark... then again that's an issue with every 3D movie, really. It was nicely directed aside from my complaints about some of the action; I really dug the musical score from Michael Giacchino; the actual songs you hear in the film... I'll just say that I did not stick around to the part of the end credits where the Rihanna song Sledgehammer played. Besides the fact that I think Rihanna makes terrible music & is a pretty repugnant and gross human being, I don't even have to hear the song to know the Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer is a million times better. Yes, I did see the “nice tribute to both Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin” part of the credits, which is something that everyone should see.

I am glad that a supernerd fan of the franchise in Simon Pegg got to work on the script as it helps make it not seem like such a soulless and brainless Hollywood pile of crap that we get too often these days. While it may not be liked by some hardcore fans, at least it was a motion picture I found to be better than expected and simply a good time.