MOVIE REVIEW: STAR TREK BEYOND



6/10

Jim Kirk, Spock and the team are following a distress call to some unchartered territory, only to be attacked and brought down, Enterprise destroyed. Scattered in a foreign world the team has to find one another, escape the clutches of their persuaders and figure out what is the formidable foe they are up against.

This new adventure is full of thrills, but I was thoroughly missing JJ Abrams' take on Star Trek universe. While Justin Lin does a decent job, some things are lacking. Abrams’ strength is to introduce depth to the character through action and some very concise dialogue. Justin Lin was given a great script, but some funny lines fall flat, and the character dynamic is lacking. The dilemma of Kirk and Spock whether to stay with the crew of Enterprise has a predictable resolution and the action pieces, up until the last 20 minutes, lack originality.

The big explosive finale partially redeems the film, and there is a mystery surrounding the main villain Krall, but he is still hard to hate. The stakes get high in the end, and there are some cool scenes with the use of gravity, which makes for exciting viewing.

STAR TREK was always known for building exciting worlds, here it is Starbase Yorktown, with its upside down cities and quirky gravity fields. Seeing it in such detail made me cringe, as I knew that all that beauty was introduced to only being demolished in the film grand finale… I was partially correct. If nothing else, the one  scene of Enterprise arrival to Yorktown is worth the price of admission ticket.


To sum it up, STAR TREK BEYOND will not disappoint, but this is not the highest standard of moviemaking achieved by the two previous installments.

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