As I’ve gone over quite a few times already these past few
years, I am a huge fan of the J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek films. The 2009 Star
Trek ‘reboot’ not only introduced me to the franchise, as was the case with
other franchise newcomers, but also ended up becoming one of my favorite films
of all-time period. As a result, the sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, was my most anticipated film of 2013. And
while I personally really loved it, the same couldn’t be said for most
long-time Star Trek fans. In fact,
most Trek fans heavily despise the
J.J. films for allegedly not staying true to the franchise’s roots and Into Darkness got a considerable amount
of backlash for its re-imaginings of scenes from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. So with all of that in mind, there
was certainly a lot of pressure on the third of these J.J.-era (or should I say
‘Kelvin’ era as it’s recently been designated) films to adhere more to what
made the franchise so popular in the first place. This time around, though,
J.J. wasn’t available to direct due to his work on a certain other film that
starts with the word ‘Star’. So in his place is Justin Lin and while a lot of Trek fans weren’t too pleased with the
hiring of ‘another action director’, Lin’s work on the Fast and Furious films have made him one of the best action directors
in the business. Plus, he made it clear that he was a Trek fan and with the addition of franchise star Simon Pegg as one
of the film’s co-writers, it looked as if this new Trek film would fare much better with fans. And sure enough, Star Trek Beyond, the 13th
installment of this iconic sci-fi franchise, is one heck of an exciting space
adventure. For fans of the J.J. films like myself, this is just yet another super
entertaining film that maintains all of the things that made the previous two
films so great. But for more hardcore Trek
fans, they’re probably going to like this one better.
At the end of Star
Trek Into Darkness, the crew of the USS
Enterprise, as led by Captain James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine), set off on
a five-year journey into uncharted space. As this film begins, the Enterprise is three years into the voyage
and while things have been going fairly smoothly for the crew, Kirk is
considering applying for a promotion to the position of Vice Admiral due to him
beginning to really feel the monotony of being a starship captain. After
briefly stopping at Yorktown, an advanced
Starbase, the crew are sent out on a rescue mission when an escape pod is found
and its sole occupant, an alien named Kalara (Lydia Wilson), says that her ship
got stranded in a nearby nebula. However, this ends up being a trap as the Enterprise is ambushed by a swarm of
alien ships led by their fearsome alien commander Krall (Idris Elba), who is
seeking a mysterious alien artifact that the Enterprise had recently found. The Enterprise is destroyed but the crew manages to abandon ship and
they end up on a nearby planet. With no ship and no way of sending out a
distress signal, Kirk, along with his fellow crewmates; first officer Spock
(Zachary Quinto), medical officer Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy (Karl Urban), communications
officer Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana), engineer Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg), helmsman
Hikaru Sulu (John Cho), and navigator Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin), as well as a
new ally in Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), a scavenger who’s been living on the
planet for some time, race to stop Krall before he can collect the artifact and
use it to attack the Federation.
As noted earlier, one of the main issues that ‘Trekkers’
have had with the J.J.-directed films is that they don’t really feel much like Trek films. While I personally disagree
with that argument, I will admit that out of all of these recent Trek films, Beyond is certainly the most Trek-ish
of the bunch. The whole plot of Kirk and crew stranded on an alien planet
definitely feels like something you’d see on an episode of The Original Series. By comparison, the last two films were more
focused on the origins of the Enterprise
crew before they set off on their five-year mission. However, if we’re talking
overall execution, Beyond very much
maintains the same level of action as its two predecessors. So with that said,
I’m not entirely sure if this will win over every Trek fan because it’s still very much an action-oriented film and
not necessarily a ‘cerebral’ kind of story as I find that some fans were
wanting out of these newer films. But as someone who actually does prefer the
action-oriented style of the newer Trek films,
this film was right up my alley and I loved every second of it. The action is
excellent as are the visuals and Justin Lin’s direction is solid throughout.
Plus, amidst all of the action, the film makes sure to spend time further developing
its characters, namely by giving them some effectively emotional character
moments. Now I’ll admit that I don’t think this film actually has as much
emotional depth as the previous two films but even with that said, there are
still plenty of emotional moments in this film, like Spock struggling to cope
with the idea of mortality following a recent tragedy (the details of which I
won’t reveal here as they’re kind of spoiler-y).
I don’t really need to go over the main cast that much
because this is the third film that they’ve been in. Simply put, they’re just
as phenomenal as they’ve been in the last two films. One of my absolute
favorite things about these new Trek films
has been the camaraderie amongst the main ensemble and I’m happy to report that
this is once again the case here, resulting in plenty of humorous banter
amongst them. Though with that said, it’s also a little bittersweet knowing
that this is the last we’ll see of Anton Yelchin in the role of Chekov, as Yelchin
tragically passed away a month ago in a car accident. So instead of focusing on
the main cast, let’s focus on the newcomers, specifically Sofia Boutella as
Jaylah and Idris Elba as the film’s main villain Krall. Boutella made quite an
excellent first impression in her first ‘major’ film role as Gazelle, the main
henchwoman of Samuel L. Jackson’s Valentine in last year’s Kingsman: The Secret Service and she’s once again excellent here.
Simply put, Jaylah’s a pretty badass female lead but is one that is also very
layered as well as shown in her backstory and her motivation of getting off of
the planet. As for Elba as Krall, I must say that these new Trek films have done a pretty excellent
job with their villains. I can’t say at the moment if Krall is as good as or
better than Nero (Trek ’09) or Khan (Into Darkness) but Elba certainly makes
the character a very memorable and quite intimidating adversary for Kirk and
company. Plus, his main motivation and backstory are quite well-developed.
As someone who absolutely loved J.J. Abrams’ two Star Trek films, Star Trek Beyond most certainly delivered on everything that I love
about these newer Trek films. The
action and visuals are excellent, the plot is solid, and the characters are excellently
handled in terms of both the performances and strong camaraderie of the
actors/actresses who play them as well as the excellent character development that
they get to work with. However, I’m well-aware that this film has a lot to
prove as most Trek purists weren’t
too pleased with the last two films. And while I personally will defend both
the 2009 Trek and Into Darkness come hell or high water, I
have the feeling that they’re going to like this film a whole lot more. Because
while it’s still very much the action-oriented style that the two J.J. films
maintained, the plot is certainly much more Trek-y
in terms of its overall execution. So in short, thanks to the solid direction
from Justin Lin, who proves to be an excellent successor to J.J., as well as
the solid writing from writers Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, Star Trek Beyond is yet another fantastic entry in this legendary
franchise. And for someone like me who grew up not with the Original Series but with J.J.’s films,
it’s just another home run hit for the franchise’s modern era and I can’t wait
to see what happens next for my favorite Enterprise
crew. In fact, we already know one key detail of what will happen next as
it was recently confirmed that Chris Hemsworth, who had a minor role in the
2009 film, will be returning in the next film to reprise his role as Kirk’s
father George. Could this potentially be the last of the J.J.-era Trek films? We don’t know for sure just
yet but needless to say I’m super excited for the new Star Trek IV, in which Kirk’s overall arc of trying to live up to
his father’s legacy will no doubt come full circle.
Rating: 5/5!
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