Year: 2016
Director: Justin Lin
What’s reasonable to expect from a summer blockbuster? That’s the question that Star Trek Beyond (terrible title) asks. No-one’s asking for a life-changing cinematic experience. I’m guessing that no-one from Suicide Squad, STB or Bourne are going to trouble the acting and directing Oscar nominations. They’re virtually critic proof these things (see Suicide Squad’s abysmal reviews and solid numbers). Firstly, does it provide an entertaining couple of hours. No question that STB delivers. The interplay between Urban, Pine and Quinto is mellowing into a very likeable trio number. Put any two in a scene and there’s something to listen to as well as watch (whereas Bourne is a virtually silent movie experience, 258 words and all). Secondly,can we see where the money went? UNquestionably. It’s not just about blowing things up. Though there’s plenty of that. The 360 Simcity in spaces, Yorktown, is gobsmackingly beautiful, a fragile and vast snow globe with millions of people inside. Chief villain Idris Elba’s fleet is a twisting, turning school of fish that in its ultimate manifestation becomes a gigantic tube wave rolling like a Big One off Hawaii. Thirdly, does it respect the franchise? There’s some very neat ideas – we first see Kirk three years into the five year mission, bored with the inky vastness of space like some Trident commander beneath the Atlantic. He’s even flirting with giving it all up for some shore post. There’s a nice nodto the late Leonard Nimoy, and many other nods to the fanboys – if you can look past Simon Pegg’s laughter-free Scotty. Several reviewers have remarked how much it feels like an extended version of the original TV series, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
And yet, and yet..spoiler alert so I’ve put my thoughts on the plotting it’s reasonable to ask a summer blockbuster to deliver.
Review recovered from my clipboard after the outage yesterday…always backup kids.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
The reboot 1 and 2, Trekkies more generally, people who want a big blockbuster but don’t want Bourne or people in tights.
What’s reasonable to ask in terms of comprehensible plot? Surely we need to know the answer as to why someone wants to take over the Enterprise and kill millions of people. For three quarters of the film we’ve got no idea why Krall has lured many space ships to enslave their crews. This enslaving appears to serve no purpose whatsoever, as his act of attempted mass murder is attempted using exactly the same ships and crew he had when we first meet him.
The big reveal of who Krall is, and why he hates star fleet so much, when it comes, is incoherent and merely causes me (at least) to spend the rest of the film wondering what we’re supposed to make of it all.
There are many smaller moments of lazy plotting and basic continuity – one clip we see Simon Pegg hanging off a cliff by his fingernails, next shot of him he’s walking around. There are many moments like this, where we seem to being going from tense moment to explosion with only the barest coherent storyline to get us there.
Nice review MM. And nicely encapsulates why I have had my fill of blockbusters that have either got contempt for the audience, or have been blinded by the money or just the possibiliies provided by SFX. At least Fury Road for example was up front in being a blockbuster piss-take (I hope).
Very much what I thought. There are nice touches, and it keeps the franchise going but they could have done more with Idris Elba – and that story has been done many times before.
But the cast is great – particularly Pine, Quinto and Urban (the best of the lot).
And there was no female cast member in her underwear for no particularly relevant reason (and stunning as Alice Eve is, that was totally gratuitous).
Still, I hope for another one. And there is the new TV series in 2017.
“For Anton”
I saw it iMax 3D at the National Air and SPace Museum, with 12 year old son. Both loved it.
Only quibble was the directing of Urban – who was ace in Dredd. “Karl, just eat the Deforest Kelley scenery”
“Dredd” was indeed ace. The only time I’ve seen a movie adapted from a comic where they actually got everything right. I’ve been hoping for a follow up but I guess the bean counters have decided that they didn’t harvest enough beans to justify another.
Dredd was ace, the lack of budget slightly showing in a strictly-rationed set of Mega-city one visuals but otherwise pretty faultless.