Review 385: Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond is a knuckle-baring, heart pounding, non stop and all around brilliant threequel and wonderful 50th anniversary celebration of the 50 year old franchise.

Three years into its five-year mission, the USS Enterprise is unexpectedly attacked during a rescue to the farthest reaches of space by Krall (Idris Elba) a ruthless, lizard-like dictator who is a sworn enemy of the federation. Crash-landing on an uncharted, hostile world, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachery Quinto) and the rest of the crew are separated from each other with little to no means of escape. Only Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) a rebellious alien warrior, can help them reunite and find a way off the planet in a race against time to stop Krall's deadly army from destroying the Federation.

The plot is fantasticly awesome, not only does it harbour back to Gene Roddenberry years of philisophical ideas about science and alien life but it also sees the Enterprise crew in a situation we haven't seen them in before, they're out of their element. It's more than just a sic-fi, action film. It's a disaster movie, it's a survival story. They are stranded as on this barren planet, their ship is reduced to a disposable pile of scrap metal and they have to rely on themselves and whatever resources than can scavenge to survive.
This brings the team closer together than they ever have been before as after the Enterprise crash-lands on the barren planet Altamid, the crew is split up into unusual pairs which helps to create new & exciting dynamics. Kirk winds up with Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Spock with Bones (Karl Urban), Uhura (Zoe Saldana) with Sulu (John Cho) and Scotty (Simon Pegg) with the aforementioned Jaylah.

Which leads to the moral of this film: Unity is stronger than violence:

Krall is very akin to an alien Hitler, and his camp is like an intergalactic Concentration camp.

Out of all the rebooted Star Trek films to date I'd have to say this is the funniest, there are so many funny quips and lines of dialogue in this film, most of the courtesy of Simon Pegg as he did serve as the screen writer for this film as well as reprising his role as Scotty, he once again showcase his signature wit, imagination

Director Justin Lin's direction is energetic, fast paced, and stylish. Whilst he brings a lot of spectacle to this film, J. J. Abrams still feels present, like he had some creative involvement in this film despite passing this film on to direct Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Apart from the trademark sense flare, he keeps the action and pace up at a brisk pace and helps to make the crews interactions feel more whilst keeping in with the tone and style of this films two predecessors but never to point where it feels like he's just copying Abrams.
The scenery is breathtaking, the production design is stupendous and captures the barren, gritty, decade old but also exotic and gorgeous, broken up feel of the planet, the costumes are majestic, giving the Federation uniforms a more Navel look than what we are used to, the special effects are beautiful, the cinematography is splendid and captures the beauty of the planet, Altamid. The action scenes are exciting, spectacular, intense and at times brutal, the make is superb and beautifully detailed, it's fast paced, the props are well crafted, the score by Michael Giacchino is excellent, the stunts are spectacular

The acting is excellent across the board.

Chris Pine once again shows that he is the captain of this new series, the enterprise are three years into their five year mission and he's beginning to feel tired and wondering if there is any meaning to this exploration even going so far as to say in his log that things have become "Episodic".

Sofia Boutella  playing alien scavenger Jaylah

Idris Elba makes for a spectular villain playing Krall  He's someone with a vendetta against the Federation

Star Trek Beyond is Beyond entertaining 4.5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.