Much has been made in news reports about the decision to turn Sulu gay, a revelation that fills approximately three seconds of screen time. The rest of the cast just toys around, making it clear just how much these movies are driven by personalities. Karl Urban and Zachary Quinto in “Star Trek Beyond” Paramount Pictures At first alone in the woods, Scotty comes across fierce survivalist Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), a pale-faced warrior apparently inspired by Jennifer Laurence’s individualistic teen in “Winter’s Bone.” Jaylah’s not the most original ass-kicker around, but her ability to manipulate invisibility fields and bound about the woodsy terrain with ease provides the movie with a nice burst of attitude. Per usual, some interactions generate more sparks than others. This kind of scenario often sustained single episodes of the original show, but struggles to congeal as a single 142 minute package. Much of the movie finds various members of the Starship roaming the planet trying to figure out ideas for escaping it. Krall’s eerie ability to sap energy from his prisoners receives just one tossed-off scene, and the reasons behind his evil intentions receive only a pithy explanation in the final act. Lin grounds the crew on a boring planet alongside a lame bad guy. Unfortunately, once the Enterprise stops moving, the movie grinds to a halt as well. The ensuing crash sequence drags on for minutes on end, unfolding as a breathless series of daring maneuvers, flying bodies and flaming debris that, for a brief moment, suggest real peril for everyone involved. “What is it we’re trying to accomplish?” Kirk wonders, and the answer just dangles there.īut then just enough happens to generate the semblance of high stakes: A mysterious alien object stored in the ship’s hull generates the interest of the villainous Krall (Idris Elba, under layers of makeup that suggest Klingon by way of triceratops), a criminal leader of unknown origins who invades the ship and uses his mechanical space army to take down the starship. They’re all still there, pressing buttons, sharing drinks, beaming about on unspecified missions. McCoy (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), Scotty, and Chekhov (the late Anton Yelchin, sadly given little to do in a thankless role). Lin’s camera glides beautifully through the Starship Enterprise, capturing the various familiar members of the crew - Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Dr. Three years into a planned five-year mission to explore the cosmos, the Captain explains in his starlog intro that boldly going where no man has gone before can get awfully redundant sometimes. At the beginning of “Star Trek Beyond,” he’s faced with a more immediate issue: Boredom. The overall inconsequential nature of “Star Trek Beyond” stands in stark contrast to 2013’s sprawling “Star Trek Into Darkness,” in which rising Starfleet leader Captain Kirk ( Chris Pine) at one point loses his job, and at another briefly loses his life. Michelle Rodriguez and Charlize Theron Filmed ‘Fast X’ Fight Sequence with No Director: ‘We Nailed It’ But its trivial qualities come as something of a relief - this is a movie engineered to avoid overextending its allure, which differs greatly from so many of its summer movie peers that do exactly that. There’s an odd disconnect between the movie’s undercooked conflict and its epic scale, to the point where it barely exists as more than a series of flashy moments. The result has Lin’s eye for outstanding set pieces and Pegg’s ear for injecting familiar genre tropes with wit. Simon Pegg does double-duty, returning to the role of Scotty and co-writing the screenplay with Doug Jung. With JJ Abrams passing the baton to Justin Lin, the latest entry plays like a CGI-heavy “Fast and the Furious” movie set in the future, with fancy gadgetry and fast-paced showdowns taking prominence over plot. Spectacular as it looks, this is a $150 million blockbuster about nothing.Ī lighter, funnier effort than the previous installments, “Star Trek Beyond” reflects a changing of the guard. The first two films in the rebooted franchise attempted to raise the stakes with various cataclysmic events threatening its cast of fresh faces, but “ Star Trek Beyond” goes back to the television roots. Despite an expansive universe stretched across over a dozen feature films and numerous television series, the appeal of “Star Trek” is pretty straightforward: a motley group of colorful characters hurtle through mini-adventures in deep space, sustained as much by their chemistry as the variety of alien civilizations in their path.
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