Movie Review
Review Star Trek Beyond
Three years into its mission into deep space, the USS Enterprise is
about to dock the most advanced space station ever built. Whilst on the
station, an unidentified ship arrives, boarding an alien who came to
ask for help as her crew and ship were lost on a planet inside an
unexplored nebula. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) accepts the rescue
mission, yet once the Enterprise enters the nebula and communications
are cut off, things aren't the way they thought they would.
As far as stories go, it's not a very original or intriguing one. The
screenwriters have played it safe and stuck to a formula that works,
whilst focusing primarily on the spectacle of the whole thing. That's
not to say the story is bad in any way, just don't go expecting
something you've never seen before. The villain is also a bit lacking
when it comes to the motivation department. Again, it's a pretty basic
reason why he's out to hurt the Enterprise crew and we saw this happen
in 2009's Star Trek, with the lackluster villain Nero, played by Eric
Bana in that film.
The cast mostly rose to the challenge. I
like Zachary Quinto as Mr. Spock. His version of the analytically
minded half-Vulcan is as charming and endearing as it's possible for a
near-robot to be. Karl Urban as the always exasperated Bones is
believable and eternally re-watchable. Zoe Saldana is little used in
this particular film (a side effect of the also underdeveloped
relationship drama between her Lt. Uhura and Spock), but does just fine
where she appears. Chris Pine's Captain Kirk continues to puzzle me
though. Pine cuts the right figure for the role—I would even call him
the "natural" choice to play Kirk—but his portrayal has nevertheless
left me thinking that the captain of the Enterprise is genuinely taken
aback by every trap or surprise lurking behind the corner. Perhaps it's
the writers' insistence on portraying him as perennially incapable of
dignified composure, but Pine's acting does little to reassure the
viewer that he is firmly in control of the situation. He seems to flap
about his own star ship, stumbling his way into and out of trouble
while somehow keeping hold of his overactive eyebrows, which are
constantly trying to fly up off his head. Still, when he is called upon
to act dignified, Pine can do it, but the script just doesn't give him
the opportunities he needs.
But it's still worth watching because it is fun. The new writing team
of Simon Pegg and Doug Jung may have written only half a plot, but they
know how to draw a laugh, if not exactly when is best to draw it. If
the Star Trek franchise is to continue making films the core component
of their business into the coming years, I would like to see a return,
at least partially, to the more philosophical bent of the television
series, but honestly I would also be content with the characters just
having actual stakes to their moral decisions.
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