Star Trek Beyond

After director J.J. Abrams stepped aside to let “Fast & Furious” helmer Justin Lin take his place, many hardcore Trekkies who'er already critical of this rebooted franchise became worried that Lin's third installment would drive the series further away from Gene Roddenberry’s more intellectual vision. While “Star Trek Beyond” doesn’t slow down the momentum or the pacing of this high-octane update, old-school Trek fans may be charmed by the  film's return to a warm and familiar sense of adventurous pulp and sci-fi optimism. Unlike the 2009 reboot, which had to reestablish everything with a new cast and a new style, and unlike its 2013 sequel "Star Trek Into Darkness," which reworked the story beats of the most beloved installment of the original Star Trek films, this outing is much smaller in scope and more contained as a story.

James Kirk (Chris Pine) is feeling melancholy about his place as the ship’s Captain, upon realizing that he has just surpassed the age that his father was when he died. Spock (Zachary Quinto) too is wondering how his place in this unified multi-cultural mission when he learns that the elder version of himself from another dimension (Leonard Nimoy) has passed away. With these character dilemmas in the background, the enterprise is called upon to investigate a deep-space distress call, where they are ambushed by a swarm of small enemy attack ships, crash-landing on a foreign planet. The group  becomes separated into pairs of survivors and have to regroup to find a means for escape as well as a way to stop their new enemy from unleashing a space virus on a nearby society of peaceful workers.

The plot dynamics of this particular adventure are somewhat generic and well worn, but that allows for more impact when it comes to the character dynamics and the focus of the films action sequences. The movie quickly gets us into the head space of this group and grounds the plot in the emotional hurdles of each member. The chemistry between Pine, Quinto and Karl Urban's Doctor McCoy informs the spectacle in a way that few summer tent poles remember to do.  Jon Cho as Sulu, Simon Peg as Scotty, and the recently deceased Anton Yelchin as Chekov are also given key sequences to shine. Zoe Saldana’s Uhura is sidelined the most within the original group as Sophia Boutella becomes the key female cast member playing the stranded warrior Jaylah, who allies herself with the Enterprise to rescue the 'red-shirts' from the evil Krall (Idris Elba).

Speaking of Krall, luckily the bright eyed adventure of the movie and creative set pieces more than make up for the lack of an interesting villain—Elba is unfortunately buried under too much make-up and plot to really resonate beyond his narrative function.

Simon Pegg and Doug Jung’s screenplay almost celebrates the filler spot many mid-franchise sequels eventually occupy, but it’s this multi-million-dollar smallness that rescues the picture from being too encumbered by plot and fan-service. There isn’t anything especially remarkable to say about “Star Trek Beyond” other than it knows how to balance tone, story, action and characters in way that keeps the audience from thinking too much about its construction as a piece of consumable popcorn product.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2016

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Star Trek Beyond."