Brimming with affection for Trek traditions and touched by tragedy, “Beyond” stars Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Karl Urban as Dr. “Bones” McCoy, Simon Pegg as engineer Scotty, Zoe Saldana as communications officer Uhura, John Cho as helmsman Sulu, the late Anton Yelchin as navigator Chekov, Idris Elba as the Enterprise-destroying villain Krall and Sofia Boutella (“Kingsman: The Secret Service”) as Jaylah, an alien who helps the Federation survivors on Krall’s planet.
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The movie opens on a melancholy note and we realise that both Kirk and Spock are planning on quitting. Fortunately, you’ll have a couple of solid new choices in the way of sequels, with “Star Trek Beyond” and “Ice Age: Collision Course” opening. The director’s experience with The Fast & The Furious movies make sure that the action is superb too.
Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekov, died tragically after the movie was made, and it is good to see his name in credits along with Leonard Nimoy’s. They will be missed. While a fourth Star Trek film has been announced, Producer J.J. Abrams says Yelchin will not be replaced in future films. Simply called Star Trek, he took audiences where no man (or director) had gone before, back to the very beginning of the story before James Tiberius Kirk bore an uncanny resemblance to T.J. Hooker.
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.
Three years into its five-year mission, the Enterprise is dealing with the drudgery of space exploration when Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew dock at a massive space station.
Elba has beyond proven that he brings a lot to the table with his voice alone (seriously, give him more roles that don’t include three hours in the make-up chair or voiceover work) and there’s a specific menacing tone he gives to Krall that keeps the character from just being some unusual blue mutated lizard that keeps appearing on the screen randomly. But you really don’t want to miss a chance to see for yourself. There is a lot of animated scenes as well in the film and they all the VFX is set at the final seige and done by Lin. At least in terms of new work within Abrams’ run on the rebooted film franchise.
Though the adventure is a little tardy getting its legs, things only get better as they go along.
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Granted, with all the galaxies at its disposal, and yet another TV series in dry dock, one might hope for a “Star Trek” movie with a bit more narrative heft.
