Fish and Cherries Productions

Synopsis: In the middle of the U.S.S. Enterprise’s five year exploration mission, we rejoin our old crew: Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto), Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana), engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (Simon Pegg, also a co-writer), Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (John Cho), and Ensign Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin, Rest In Peace). After docking at the spherical Federation space station called Starbase Yorktown, the crew receives a plea for help from beyond the nearby nebula. Their response runs them afoul of a despot named Krall (Idris Elba), who takes most of the Enterprise crew prisoner while the rest find themselves free but stranded on the planet. With the help of an alien woman named Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) who was stranded there since birth, the remaining crew must figure out how to free their crew and stop Krall before he launches a deadly attack on Starfleet.

Review: Star Trek Beyond was a fantastic ride and the closest the reboot series has come to feeling like Star Trek. While it has its share of action scenes, there’s a lot more focus on interpersonal dilemmas and character interactions. It takes time to breathe when the characters need to reflect or have a conversation rather than propelling forward through nonstop action scenes. While we’re on the subject, the action scenes are pretty good too.

The villain is an unusual contradiction. On the one hand, he’s a boring, snarling, towering creature, who only becomes interesting in the last act of the movie. On the other, he’s the best villain of the new timeline because his clash with the heroes is one born of conflicting ideologies rather than revenge or conquest. And make no mistake, this does go back to Gene Roddenberry’s ideological roots of how technology has made our lives better and improved us as a species. Starbase Yorktown is a marvel to behold, with a unique design and a great use of architectural dimensions. It really does show a bright future, only this time, it does so without J.J. Abrams’ constant use of lens flare.

The movie is by no means perfect. My biggest gripe is that the editing sometimes feels frenetic, which isn’t surprising considering that the new director did most of the Fast and the Furious series. I’m also not sure that this film does women a lot of favors, though at least there’s no gratuitous underwear shot like in the last movie. Admittedly, the important women feel like they have purpose and actually contribute to the plot, but two of the side females being turned into sacrificial lambs to show the stakes are dire does not sit well with me. Also, the Spock-Uhura relationship problems are becoming tiresome. Either split them up or have them get married. We’re tired of the will-they-won’t-they nonsense.

But for every misstep, there are a lot of good steps. I love how useful technology and devices come back into play later in the movie, rather than just being forgotten in the climax as is typical of many Star Trek stories. I love how the characters are not jerks like they were in the last two films. I love that it seems to be written by people who actually like and respect Star Trek. If you haven’t been on board with the new Star Trek timeline, this film might win you over. Me, I’m glad I saw Star Trek Beyond — it’s definitely one of the better summer blockbusters this year.

Fun Tidbit: When the crew of the Enterprise disembarks on Yorktown for the first time, you can hear an announcement of the serial numbers of ships that are just arriving. One of those numbers is NCC-2893, which is the number of the U.S.S. Stargazer, the first ship commanded by the one and only Jean-Luc Picard.