Going boldly or limping stagnantly into which territory?
The marketing executives at Paramount need to face the gallows for their artistically criminal abuse of the “Star Trek” franchise.
This franchise has gone on to become a tent pole of genre media worldwide, a substantially impactful entry of science fiction that has permanently colored societal perceptions of sci-fi for mainstream audiences, and has defied its original fate of cancellation back in the 70s to become one of the most financially successful, culturally recognizable and lauded franchises of the modern age through outside of the box storytelling surrounding an optimistic future that cheers on diversity and open-mindedness in spite of the tumultuous politics of the era, both fictional and metatextual, that would scare such bold thinking away.
Any series that manages to reach 50 years in age deserves recognition of some sort but that something like “Star Trek” has managed to reach a 50th anniversary in the face of insurmountable odds and created such a splash in popular culture, one would think the occasion would be met with a substantial amount of celebration.
This thought was clearly lost on the marketers of “Star Trek Beyond,” who thought that the cinematic entry marking the 50th birthday of a landmark series, seeing the crew of the starship Enterprise separated from their iconic ship and marooned on a primitive world on a mission for survival and to stop a conspiracy threatening to deliver a crippling blow to the United Federation of Planets, was better sold to the people through 2 mediocre high octane trailers that may as well have been YouTube music videos.
It would have been really hard to top the disappointment of the last ten year milestone of this series but between a movie that looks and was marketed as though crafted by the minds of the “Fast and Furious” series and a new television series commissioned for the sole purpose of marketing CBS’ god awful subscription streaming service, year 50 seemed set to do just that.
Fortunately, the dubious honor of most hollow “Star Trek” anniversary has yet to be supplanted because “Star Trek Beyond” is actually good. Damn good. Top 5 “Star Trek” movies of all time good.
Making up for 2013’s disappointing (yes I was very generous to it in hindsight) “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Beyond” celebrates the best of its source material from eras new and old not to redo and water down an iconic story that it was doomed to fail living up to but craft a new story speaking to the spirit of what the franchise is about.
The result is a fun yet brainy 2 hour adventure film that plays out like a cinematic version of a classic episode of “The Original Series.”
With the building blocks of this reality set firmly into place with J.J. Abrams’ 2009 feature, the focus shifts from the personal journey of Captain Kirk to a test of Starfleet’s ideals planted on the shoulders of the Enterprise crew, as they’re stripped of their ship and left with nothing but their wits to survive and strike back at the ruthless alien warlord Krall, who sets his sights on the rest of the galaxy after downing Kirk and friends.
“Star Trek Beyond’s” newfound focus on the trials of the entire crew rather than the captain allows the entire cast to better exercise their talents in a production propped up by all of the players involved rather than just Chris Pine, who, despite being good actor and managing to gradually grow into the role, was always one of the weakest elements of the previous 2 films.
Uhura’s diplomacy tactics, Sulu’s commanding presence, Scotty’s engineering brilliance, and Chekov’s mechanical expertise are on full display and run through a ringer of testing scenarios in a desperation to keep their surviving crew mates intact and somehow make it home alive, allowing Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Simon Pegg, and the late Anton Yelchin to really stretch their legs in the roles in ways that hadn’t quite been provided for them before.
The trifecta of Kirk, Spock, and Bones McCoy has not been left ignored either. The interplay between Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban provides for some of the most legitimately humorous, somber, and human moments of these characters within the entire franchise, despite the complete change in actor portrayal.
“Beyond’s” returning cast is additionally joined by Jaylah, a native of the Enterprise crash site played by Sophia Boutella, who manages to hold her own and almost steal the spotlight from the more developed cast members with her resourcefulness and unique perspective as a Federation outsider. She’s a great new edition to the franchise and would appear to even be set up for future appearances that will hopefully come to fruition.
With the tasks of the primary arc placed on the entire crew, the film is freed up to play with its set pieces and spaced out by the more contemplative interactions of characters confronted by their own mortality and seeking solace in reassurance of what their fighting for, balancing character and action effortlessly, similarly to director Justin Lin’s work in transforming the “Fast and Furious” series into an exaggerated and soap operatic but entertaining and effectively character driven action series.
The action is cleverly set up to allow its participants to think on their feet and thanks to clever editing, intensive camera work, and effective sound design, the tension, majesty and horrors of space exploration have never felt more real.
From top to bottom, “Star Trek Beyond” is more or less an excellent example of crowd pleasing genre cinema as a standalone experience, a superior sequel, and a stupendous jump on point to the “Star Trek” franchise for outsiders as well as a strong comfort food experience for long term fans.
All of the movie’s overall polish does however, unfortunately draw extra attention to its flaws, most of which have sadly been plaguing the “Star Trek” franchise cinematically for over half of its lifespan.
Villains have been a hit or miss territory for this series for decades now and the big baddie of “Beyond,” despite some clever philosophical framing, is no exception to the rule.
With his almost cartoonishly jagged character design and broken English which makes less sense the more is revealed about him, Krall is yet another in a growing line of galactic psychopathic cynics that wants to breakdown the Federation for ideological reasons that are intended to be sympathetic but ultimately come off as petty. He’s a plot device at best and a massive waste of the talented Idris Elba’s infinite well charisma.
Perhaps this is simply the trap of trying to force a role of antagonist into a franchise best known for episodically tackling grey moral dilemmas more often than not lacking defined villains but when your last attempt to replicate the success of “Wrath of Khan” actually involved that title character and fell harder on its face than some of the more abstract “Star Trek” movies, it might be time to rethink your narrative priorities.
It wouldn’t have been quite as crippling were it not for the fact that pretty much 90% of the narrative is driven by his actions and his motivations aren’t properly laid out until the last 15 minutes of the movie. When the Enterprise is being heart wrenchingly ripped apart with the characters finding their bearings in the aftermath, this isn’t so bad. After he becomes the active target and obstacle to overcome, the seams start to become visible. Although the revelations and subsequent discussion of the matter mitigates this it never truly ceases to be an irritation.
That’s pretty sad too because barring that moment and an awkwardly executed sequence or two here and there, the film was damn near perfect. It's ultimately about the way differences can come together to form balanced teams and showcasing the true power of unity through seemingly impossible trials. It succeeds in its intent but unfortunately does so by exposing its greatest technical weakness.
Even with its shaky spots here and there though, “Star Trek Beyond” has proven to be the most delightfully surprising oasis in the desert landscape of summer film that has been harsher and more intense than usual. After months of watching movies more concerned with their own budgets than the creative heights that those budgets can achieve, it’s wonderful to have left the theater for the first time in over two months thinking, “I wanna watch this again soon.”
Course set to Warp 7 out of 10
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