Review: Star Trek: Beyond

While J.J. Abrams was off making a little movie called Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the third installment of the Star Trek reboot was in the middle of production. Since most of Abrams' time was preoccupied elsewhere, the studio turned to Justin Lin to direct Star Trek: Beyond. Now if that name sounds familiar, it should. Lin has directed four of the Fast and Furious movies.

But despite the clear differences in directing style between Abrams and Lin, the heart of story remained because Simon Pegg, who plays the role of Montgomery Scott, had an integral part in the writing of the script. So on the surface, Star Trek: Beyond looked like the perfect summer blockbuster. And it was. It was loud, it was exciting, it was action-packed, and it was probably the best summer action movie from beginning to end this year.

It's difficult to think that this is the last time
they will all be on screen together

We first see the Enterprise crew three years into their five-year space mission. It's clear that the time in space has begun to take it's toll on Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Hikaru Sulu (John Cho). Without giving too much away, Kirk appears to be having an existential crisis of some sort, Spock and Uhura are having issues with their relationship, and Sulu hasn't seen his daughter in some time. The great thing about the beginning was we got to see how the rest of the crew operated during their downtime. To be frank, it's essentially a freshman dorm hall. But I digress.

With supplies dwindling, the Enterprise arrives at Yorktown, a new planet with advanced capabilities, to replenish, meet up with their families, and really just relax after so much time in space. But there was no rest for the weary as they were quickly confronted with a new issue. An approaching escape pod carrying Kalara, an alien who claimed her ship had been stranded in a nearby nebula, needed help. So out go the Enterprise crew to rescue her ship and crew only to be attacked by Krall (Idris Elba) and his group of "bees."

As the Enterprise is overrun, and eventually destroyed, the crew members escape the ship, but they end up separated from each other. It's an interesting strategy by Lin, pairing together the crew members for the majority of first half of the movie, creating interesting dialogue, especially between McCoy (Karl Urban) and Spock. McCoy's dry humor and metaphors combined with Spock's literal interpretations provides for cheap laughs to break up the monotony of their search. But while Spock and McCoy, Uhura and Sulu, and Chekov and Kirk are all paired off, Scotty is off on his own. That is until he stumbles upon Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), an alien who had been stranded on the planet after her family was killed by Krall and his lackies years before.

Is it weird to be attracted to a
black and white alien? Asking for a friend

For all intents and purposes, Jaylah is probably the best character of the entire film. It takes plenty of guts to introduce an entirely new character to a film franchise that has its diehards, but Lin, Pegg and Abrams pull it off perfectly. Not only do they portray Jaylah as an intelligent, resourceful total badass, but they also show her vulnerabilities later in the film as she's lost a great deal in her life. She's the key to everything, and she will be a much-welcomed addition to the Enterprise crew. Plus, it's apparent that by the end of the film that she has an monumentally high alcohol tolerance. Respect.

Eventually, the crew reunites and they are able to get everyone off the planet before they are killed. Unfortunately, Krall, armed with a bio-weapon, heads toward Yorktown with the full intention of destroying it. And it's up to the Enterprise crew to stop him. That's as far as I'll go. I don't want to give away the ending, but I will tell you the movie has the greatest usage of the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" in the history of cinema. I have no issue in saying that.

The one thing that bugged the hell out of me with this film is the lack of character development on the whole. These people have spent the last three years in space, but the amount of new information we learn about them is minimal. It definitely didn't match up to the previous two films, but maybe that was to be expected with a directorial change. But I figure that can all be forgiven since we know a decent amount about the main characters to begin with.

What can't be forgiven is we really have no idea why Krall is the way he is. We are given no reason as to why he wants to destroy the Yorktown and the Federation, other than he is a supervillain. That's it. In the first two films, we know why the Romulans want to destroy Spock, and we know why Khan wants to destroy the Federation. We get no inkling or reasoning behind Krall's constant need to take innocent lives.

For the record, while Elba does his best with this character, can we stop giving him roles of this nature? He is far too accomplished of an actor to have his face covered for an entire film.

But in general, it was a rather enjoyable two hours. What the movie lacked in character backstory, it certainly made up for with consistent, high-octane action throughout.

Ruby Rating: 4.5/5 gems