Of all the films coming out this summer Star Trek Beyond was probably the one that I had the least confidence in. Everything released in advance of the film made it look like it the people involved didn't understand the essential appeal of the franchise. After all the director of Fast and Furious hardly seems like the right choice for a heady Sci Fi film. As a huge Trekkie this was rather disappointing, especially as the franchise celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and Beyond is the only thing Paramount is releasing. It turns out that my fears were unjustified however because Star Trek Beyond is easily the best Trek film since the release of Star Trek: First Contact (1996) or possibly even before that.
The success of this film comes down to the script, written by Simon Pegg, who also play's Scotty and who co-wrote many of Edgar Wright's best comedies, and newcomer Doug Jung. These two writers seem to get Star Trek in a way that the previous writers, Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, did not. The plot of the film is fairly simple. When the Enterprise is attacked by a mysterious alien swarm the crew becomes stranded and separated on a planet run by an enigmatic alien named Krall who captures most of the crew. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty must team up with another of the planets inhabitants, Jayla, in order to rescue their friends and escape. What makes it work is the interaction between the cast members. This was always one of the stronger aspects of this new rebooted series but the script for this film really gives them a chance to shine. Karl Urban as McCoy, who was sidelined in the first two films, is particularly good here and has a lot of chemistry with Zachary Quinto's Spock, who finally seems much more like the character from the original series. Chris Pine continues to shine as Kirk and his character has finally matured and feels much more confident sitting in the captain's chair then he did before. Simon Pegg, John Cho, and Zoe Saldana are all solid as Scotty, Sulu, and Uhura respectively and each of their characters is given something to do. Uhura's relationship with Spock works much better here than it did in the last two. She also has some nice moments with Sulu after they are captured by Krall. Pegg's Scotty has pretty good chemistry with newcomer Sofia Boutella's Jayla, who's a scavenger and, like Scotty, something of a technical wizard. Anton Yelchin (RIP) also puts in a solid, final performance as Chekov and both he and Leonard Nimoy are paid tribute to in subtle, classy way that doesn't distract from the plot.
If the film has a weakness it's that Lin's direction is not great. Visually this film reminds me, far too often, of a network TV show one might watch on ABC or the CW. This is somewhat ironic I suppose as this film feels more akin to an episode of TOS than any Trek film since Insurrection which was released 18 years ago. Beyond is also somewhat light on thematic depth. The overall theme is basically constructive unity versus destructive self interest which is fine but not all that much is done with it compared with some of Trek's more nuanced stories of yore. Nevertheless, given the surprising amount of subtle character moments and the renewed sense of optimism found in this film along with the promise of a new TV series coming next year, Trek is on much more firm footing than is has been in a long while.
Score: 8/10
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