Meanwhile, Bones (Karl Urban), tends to an injured Spock (Zachary Quinto), while Kirk, Chekov (Anton Yelchin), and Scotty (Simon Pegg), get help from an alien named Jahla (Sofia Boutella) who kind of looks like Gwen Stefani if Stefani had joined KISS.
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With Abrams serving as one of the film’s producers, the directorial reins have been handed to Justin Lin, best known as the director of three movies in the Fast and Furious franchise of action thrillers: Fast & Furious, Fast Five, and Fast & Furious 6.
Lin replicates Abrams’s breakneck energy for a couple of elaborate set pieces, but he knows the story’s real pleasures lie in its middle movement, as our isolated heroes suss out their situations and work to find their friends. From there, it’s down to the nearest planet, where the scattered crew must try to thwart the genocidal aims of Krall (Idris Elba).
“Star Trek Beyond” definitely appeals to fantasy and science fiction enthusiasts, but overall it’s still a solid action adventure film that other audiences can appreciate.
The only glaring issue with “Star Trek Beyond” is Pegg and Jung could have spent some more time developing Krall. The film is quite amusing at times, especially when Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the scene stealing Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) are paired together, but fails to dive deeper into our beloved characters.
Star Trek Beyond opens with a sense of ennui. There is no word yet on who will direct Star Trek 4. There’s a major twist in the film that lends to his motivations, but I won’t give it away here.
Especially when compared to the film’s immediate predecessor, Star Trek Into Darkness, directed by J.J. Abrams, which was brilliantly layered and riveting, perhaps the highlight of the entire series. Leonard Nimoy’s death is covered in the plot of the film and delivers some very poignant moments in Star Trek Beyond. But these are minor niggles in an otherwise encapsulating Star Trek adventure. Otherwise, it serves up more of the usual: Bones comically kvetching about Spock’s by-the-book logic-driven ways; Kirk impetuously running headlong into danger, driven by the need to measure up to his heroic, late father; and Scotty desperately trying to keep the Enterprise and later another, older, creakier starship from coming apart at the seams.
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If the last film in this series proved anything, it’s that there’s only place for one tall, white, unemotional character in a Star Trek film-and that person has pointy ears. Lin also is masterful, much like he was behind the directors chair of the “Fast and Furious” movies, in maximizing his use of a tremendous ensemble cast. It’s the closest any of the new movies has gotten to the big issues that made “Star Trek” so groundbreaking when Gene Roddenberry created it 50 years ago.
