Star Trek: Beyond is a decent popcorn movie, with plenty of action and some decent humor, but which fails to develop the plot very well or provide a really worthwhile bad guy. It's probably what you would expect for a Star Trek movie in the JJ Abrams style (although not directed by Abrams).
Beyond joins the Enterprise crew just over halfway through the 5 year deep-space exploration mission they began at the closing of the previous film. The ship docks at an enormous Federation space station, for some R&R, at which point an apparent refugee arrives, requesting assistance for her lost ship and crew in a nearby nebula. The Enterprise is the only ship capable of navigating through the nebula, so Kirk and cast head off on the rescue mission. Predictably, and as you've already seen from the trailers, the ship is attacked, and the crew finds themselves stranded on a strange planet with a hostile bad guy. Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty, with the assistance of Jaylah (another stranded refugee), set about rescuing the crew, and then foiling the evil plot of the big bad, played by Idris Elba.
The movie is directed by Justin Lin, who did some of the Fast and Furious movies, and there is plenty of action, as you might expect. Gigantic space battles, and more down to Earth action on the surface of the planet. There weren't really any hugely astonishing scenes, but it was all done competently. The humor was good, and there was plenty of play between Spock and Bones, which was reminiscent of the original series. However, the acting and writing wasn't very good, maybe not even as good as the last two ST films. At times both Bones and Spock seemed almost cartoonishly over the top, and some of the lines were so syrupy and/or straight out of an action movie cliche dictionary, that they were almost distracting. There were a couple of scenes that are deliberately hokey, and were enjoyable, so long as you are willing to play along.
One of the worst things about recent films, and this one as well, is the lack of a really high quality bad guy. Elba is ok in this movie, but nothing special, and the film really doesn't spend enough time developing his character to make you invest in him as a really sinister villain. Sure, he has evil plans, and sure, he's going to hurt a lot of people, but his motivation is sketchy, and his backstory has tons of holes in it. His second in command, who is revealed as apparently the driving force in Jaylah's story is hardly shown, and doesn't get enough time to hardly even know who he is.
Overall, Beyond is about what you would expect from a Summer Star Trek movie, with plenty of action, humor, space stuff, bad guys, etc. However, it didn't strike me as anything special, even amongst the current crop of Trek movies. There's a lot of violence, although no gore. There's no sex or foul language. Fine for the kids if you don't mind them seeing things blow up, people getting shot by lasers, and a few mummy type of effects.
Slowguy
(insert pithy phrase here...)
Beyond joins the Enterprise crew just over halfway through the 5 year deep-space exploration mission they began at the closing of the previous film. The ship docks at an enormous Federation space station, for some R&R, at which point an apparent refugee arrives, requesting assistance for her lost ship and crew in a nearby nebula. The Enterprise is the only ship capable of navigating through the nebula, so Kirk and cast head off on the rescue mission. Predictably, and as you've already seen from the trailers, the ship is attacked, and the crew finds themselves stranded on a strange planet with a hostile bad guy. Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty, with the assistance of Jaylah (another stranded refugee), set about rescuing the crew, and then foiling the evil plot of the big bad, played by Idris Elba.
The movie is directed by Justin Lin, who did some of the Fast and Furious movies, and there is plenty of action, as you might expect. Gigantic space battles, and more down to Earth action on the surface of the planet. There weren't really any hugely astonishing scenes, but it was all done competently. The humor was good, and there was plenty of play between Spock and Bones, which was reminiscent of the original series. However, the acting and writing wasn't very good, maybe not even as good as the last two ST films. At times both Bones and Spock seemed almost cartoonishly over the top, and some of the lines were so syrupy and/or straight out of an action movie cliche dictionary, that they were almost distracting. There were a couple of scenes that are deliberately hokey, and were enjoyable, so long as you are willing to play along.
One of the worst things about recent films, and this one as well, is the lack of a really high quality bad guy. Elba is ok in this movie, but nothing special, and the film really doesn't spend enough time developing his character to make you invest in him as a really sinister villain. Sure, he has evil plans, and sure, he's going to hurt a lot of people, but his motivation is sketchy, and his backstory has tons of holes in it. His second in command, who is revealed as apparently the driving force in Jaylah's story is hardly shown, and doesn't get enough time to hardly even know who he is.
Overall, Beyond is about what you would expect from a Summer Star Trek movie, with plenty of action, humor, space stuff, bad guys, etc. However, it didn't strike me as anything special, even amongst the current crop of Trek movies. There's a lot of violence, although no gore. There's no sex or foul language. Fine for the kids if you don't mind them seeing things blow up, people getting shot by lasers, and a few mummy type of effects.
Slowguy
(insert pithy phrase here...)