RageLite review - Star Trek Beyond

Captain’s Log: Star Date... I think we’re in August now, this is the voyage of the Starship Enterprise and the story of how when we explored the final frontier, we delivered a Box Office bomb.

Star Trek Beyond is the third and currently final instalment in the Star Trek reboot series. The series would still have a future in its series on streaming but the adventures of Captain Kirk would seem to be at an end for the moment, with Chris Pine becoming Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman, and somehow will be in its sequel despite being dead and all.

When it comes to the writers we’re out with the old and in the with the Simon Pegg, who has certainly written stuff before but is mostly well known for comedy. Doug Jung joins him and his experience is mostly in TV. JJ Abrams has stepped back into a producer’s role, with Justin Lin taking over as director.

Released in July 2016, just 2 months off the series’ 50^th anniversary, made on a $185m budget, the film underperformed, making just $314m at the box office. Having to compete with Ghostbusters, Jason Bourne, and Suicide Squad, 2/3 of which are terrible, and the other only slightly less terrible, didn’t help, attributing to a 63% drop in the box office on the second Friday, and lead to an estimated $50m loss for the studio.

The series continued to get critical praise, with an 85% Rotten Tomatoes rating and an 80% audience rating with averages 7/10 and 3.88/5 respectively. So, what happened here? Let’s take a look

We begin with the Enterprise crew making an unsuccessful attempt to broker piece between 2 alien races using the film’s mcguffin as an offering. Kirk is beamed out and they have to resupply at a new Federation base called Yorktown, which is a massive city that looks very similar to how they portrayed Earth in the last films. Kirk is getting a bit run down with it all and has applied for the position of Vice Admiral, with him recommending Spock as his replacement

Spock meanwhile has broken up with Uhura, again, and is considering leaving the Enterprise to return to his home-world and help repopulate it. Before either matter can be addressed, they’re approached by Kalara (Lydia Wilson) who claims her ship crashed beyond a nebula and needs a capable ship and crew to help rescue hers. Once they arrive, the ship is attacked by a massive swarm of ships lead by a guy they call Krall (Idris Elba), who’s conveniently looking for the same mcguffin.

The Enterprise is torn apart, with many of the crew killed or captured. They crash on the planet below, but with Krall hot on their tracks, they’ll need to come up with a plan quickly if they want to escape and save the Federation.  

OK, this is a mixed bag, I’ve gotta be honest with you, but there is plenty of positives to look at. The films continue to look brilliant, with good CGI and very impressive makeup effects. I don’t know why this lost to Suicide Squad when it comes to makeup. The story, at the very least is engaging, the villain has issues but he does have a menacing presence, and makes a big impact doing what no villain has fully succeeded in doing so far, destroying the Enterprise.

Unsurprisingly, given who’s writing the script, Scotty gets an enlarged role, as the main cast of the Enterprise are split up after the crash. He meets up with Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), who is a relatively interesting new addition to the cast, she’s strong and stubborn, but not without her vulnerabilities, she’s terrified of Krall and does get her ass handed to her during the fight with one of his generals

Kirk gets partnered up with Checkov, who also gets a much-expanded role over previous films. Given that Anton Yelchin, who played him, tragically died before this movie was released, it’s nice that he got a role like this. His dialogue with Kirk was fine, although it’s disappointing that Kirk never had anyone react to him applying for the Vice Admiral position, Spock got a reaction from Bones when he revealed his intent.

Spock and Bones provide an interesting dysfunctional dynamic that actually provides some of the best witty dialogue of the film. Spock is badly injured and Bones is the only one able to keep him alive. Spock never ceases to be semi-frustrating and Bones’ hard-ass attitude compliments that quite well.  

This film also handles action in my opinion better than into Darkness. The impacts feel more like impacts, the obsession with lens flares has gone, and the climax doesn’t feel tacked on like it did in the last movie.

One more positive, the death of Leonard Nimoy and hence old Spock is handled tastefully and respectfully.

So, where does this movie fall flat? To me, once again the problem is that they don’t follow through with a lot of set up character arcs. Kirk’s intent to leave the Enterprise and his general dissatisfaction should’ve allowed for character growth among him and the crew, this clashing with Spock’s decision should’ve had major impacts but no, the ending resets everything to the status quo, including Spock’s relationship with Uhura for some reason.

That and despite making a good first impression, I’m not impressed with Krall overall. His backstory isn’t revealed until far too late in the game for it to have any impact. Regenerative tech like he found doesn’t sound like something an alien race would just leave behind, nor do the worker drones he found. He’s generically evil and despite me praising the makeup earlier, his design reminds me of the Stenza off Doctor Who, it was boring.

Idris Elba does what he can with the material but overall, despite his obvious strength, I never found him interesting enough to find threatening. Kalara too had this problem, I don’t know why she worked for Krall or who she was, after revealing herself, even though I saw this coming a while back.

Did you know Sulu was gay in this reboot? Honestly, I wouldn’t mind. I get the logic of doing this but it’s so blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, it’s like the therapy scene in Endgame.

Star Trek Beyond is a fun watch, with entertaining action and the usual crew of likeable characters all giving reasonably good performances. There is a couple of bits of good humour, and I applaud Simon Pegg for excising restraint, his writing proves beyond anything that he’s a fan of this series. That being said, the environments ended up being a little bland, and the villain, though he had a good start ended up being underwhelming.

Rating 75/100