The rebooted Star Trek films aren’t a trilogy, per se, especially when the franchise is an ongoing series. But the third installment of trilogies in sci-fi and superhero blockbuster sagas haven’t typically been the strongest of the trio. Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight Rises quickly come to mind. Staying in the Star Trek universe, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock wasn’t one of the franchise’s best efforts.
Maybe that rule wouldn’t apply to Star Trek Beyond, since it’s following up on the disappointment of Star Trek Into Darkness. After successfully rebooting the franchise with the 2009 Star Trek and providing a clean slate of stories to work from with some time-travel hocus-pocus, J.J. Abrams (along with writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof) took a major step backwards by trying to retell a famous storyline with the mythology’s best villain. Making matters worse, Abrams spent so much energy denying that Khan was the bad guy when it was completely obvious that the revelation had no impact in the movie.
But let’s not digress too much into beating up again on Star Trek Into Darkness. Star Trek Beyond is a new movie, with Justin Lin bringing some juice from four of the Fast & Furious films, and Simon Pegg (Scotty!) and Doug Jung providing a fresh take on the story. The hope was that Lin’s eye for visual thrills and a less convoluted story would give a boost to a rebooted franchise that’s never seemed to catch on like it should, especially with a wider audience.
Unfortunately, that anticipation makes Star Trek Beyond that much more disappointing. Lin does indeed bring a much different visual sensibility to this movie than J.J. Abrams did with the last two films (though he was no slouch when it came to action), but the camera work, visual effects, editing and pacing are all far too frantic to make the movie an enjoyable experience. Visually, this film is just far too noisy. (Noise literally figures into the climax, by the way.) Perhaps part of the problem is conceptual, with the threatening alien race that the USS Enterprise encounters flying smaller spacecraft that resemble bugs, swarming together and attacking its prey.
Lin and his production team deserve credit for creating a much different adversary for the Enterprise to battle in space. We’ve seen enough of two gigantic starships lurching at and around one another in space throughout the Star Trek mythology. But the visual blizzard that ends up on screen goes on for much too long and becomes overwhelming. That was surely the intention, as the Enterprise and its crew encounter a overpowering menace that they’re ill-equipped to handle, ending up so shell-shocked that there’s no alternative but to flee and regroup. But just because our heroes can’t tell what’s going on doesn’t mean that the same problem should be passed along to the viewer.
The issues are even worse when the action goes down to a more human level. Fight scenes are completely incoherent because Lin keeps the camera in tight, trying to create a whirlwind sense of frenzy. Hasn’t movie action progressed beyond that (sorry, no pun intended) over the past 15 years with films like The Raid and Captain America: The Winter Soldier? (Hell, the bad guy’s right-hand man is played by Joe Taslim, who was in The Raid.) The movie almost redeems itself with a fight between Sofia Boutella’s Jaylah and the villain’s top henchman, perhaps because the action isn’t restricted to a corridor obscured in darkness. But that’s not the climatic battle of the story.
What makes this especially disappointing is that Lin has shown a talent for directing action with his Fast & Furious movies, particularly in regards to new takes on car chase scenes. Cars chasing planes! Cars jumping between skyscrapers! Perhaps it would be understandable if Lin was a bit overwhelmed dealing with spaceships rather than muscle cars? But were he and cinematographer Stephen F. Windon baffled by not having Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson — or ridiculous set pieces — to make their action scenes look better? If Lin ends up directing another Star Trek movie and Diesel or Johnson is cast in the film, we may have our answer.
Besides the action, the story isn’t entirely easy to follow either, relying more on betrayals and twists — along with the incredible ability of engineers to make broken technology suddenly work — than straightforward narrative. Star Trek Beyond begins in a quiet place with the Enterprise three years into its five-year mission.
Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) is wondering if he’s really accomplishing anything by commanding a Federation starship. Did he join Starfleet for the wrong reasons to begin with? Would another captain be able to achieve more, helping to bring diplomacy and order to the galaxy, by leading the Enterprise?
Meanwhile, Spock (Zachary Quinto) is experiencing his own dilemma. Having lost virtually his entire race and facing his mortality with the loss of his mentor (which also echoes the real-life passing of Leonard Nimoy), perhaps he can help his people more by being an inspirational leader, rather than zipping around the cosmos. Those internal conflicts are quickly cast aside once the main story kicks in, of course.
Star Trek Beyond also suffers from not having a memorable villain, which is an entirely shameful use of an actor like Idris Elba. Elba is certainly done no favors by being hidden under layers of prosthetics and a mouth full of alien teeth.
Though his character, Krall, may be someone who’s uncomfortable with his form — for reasons that we learn later in the story — Elba seems like he’s trapped under all that make-up and not able to do what he’d really like to. His appearance changes as the movie progresses — why that happens isn’t entirely clear, though it provides a sense of mystery to the narrative — but it seems like a waste to cast Elba and then essentially hide him for most of the story. Did the production team really have to design that particular look for the villain?
The strength of these new Star Trek films is the cast and it’s probably not a coincidence that a script co-written by Pegg makes better use of the entire ensemble, instead of making it ultimately about Kirk versus Krall (though there is some element of that, naturally). Everyone on the Enterprise crew does seem to factor in somehow to the story’s resolution, which is a nice touch. (Of course, it’s also heartbreaking to see the recently deceased Anton Yelchin play a character he clearly loves.) All of these actors seem to enjoy playing their characters and these films benefit from that affection.
Personally, I’m eager to see them all again. (I can’t get enough of these versions of Kirk and Spock, especially with Karl Urban’s Bones McCoy. No one has more fun in these movies than Urban. OK, except maybe Pegg.) If only the script and direction could match that enthusiasm by providing better material worthy of their performances.
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