An Exciting and Original Adventure for the Enterprise Crew, Marred by Poorly Staged Action Scenes
After three grueling years in deep space, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) of the Enterprise begins to doubt his career choice. He applies for a staff job, but at that moment, the Federation receives an SOS from an alien spacecraft. Only the Enterprise can save the distressed astronauts, and Kirk and his crew embark on their last mission. As soon as the ship passes through the nebula concealing the aliens from Starfleet scanners, the SOS turns out to be a trap set to board the Enterprise. Earth weapons prove useless against the attackers’ armaments, and the crew is forced to abandon the destroyed vessel and land on a planet where the villains’ base is located.
“Still from “Star Trek Beyond””)
The space station “Yorktown” visited by the heroes is named after one of the early working titles for the main spacecraft in the original Star Trek series. Ultimately, that ship was named “Enterprise.”
After all the blockbusters that Hollywood studios have been feeding us in recent months, “Beyond” feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s not a remake, not a reboot, not an attempt overloaded with unnecessary characters to lay the foundation for several future films. It’s also not an overly pompous movie that considers itself the main event of the year and isn’t shy about advertising it, nor is it a propaganda piece steeped in trendy radical ideology, lightly disguised as a high-budget film. “Beyond” is simply a new, exciting adventure of imperfect but worthy people from a utopian future, where humanity isn’t fighting off zombies but exploring deep space and fighting for a happy future for the entire Universe.
“Still from “Star Trek Beyond””)
The previous film in the series, “Star Trek Into Darkness,” should have been something like this, but director J.J. Abrams chickened out and, instead of creating a new adventure, dug up the main villain from the classic Star Trek film “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” The séance didn’t particularly please anyone, and Abrams ran off to shoot a new Star Wars series, where he pulled off a similar cowardly trick by copying someone else’s successful work. Justin Lin, the director of the most successful “Fast & Furious” films, had to revive the knocked-down series, and the American Taiwanese director skillfully used his ability to build driven, “masculine” stories with many key characters.
Although Captain Kirk is once again the central and most heroic character, “Beyond” is structured so that each of the Enterprise officers gets a chance to shine as a brave space pilot and as a textured personality. The emergency landing scatters the heroes across the planet, and each of them experiences their own personal adventure until Kirk reassembles them into a team to storm the villains’ camp and prevent their nefarious plans, first on the ground and then in space. This is an excellent plot move because, with all due respect to Starfleet, its crews are most interesting when circumstances and antagonists dig them out of their starship shell and prevent them from acting as a well-oiled machine that has worked out every movement in training and simulators.
The Villain and New Allies
At the beginning of the film, its weak point may seem to be the main villain – a seemingly primitive alien villain dreaming of conquest and destruction. But towards the end of the film, the villain reveals a second layer, and the film asks viewers several provocative questions related to the criminal’s motivation. However, “Beyond” doesn’t even attempt to discuss these questions and possible answers. But it doesn’t need to. Why annoy those viewers who came to the cinema only for a space adventure with a philosophical dispute? Interested Star Trek fans are quite capable of discussing the problems that “Beyond” touches on in their forums and social networks.
The heroes’ new ally, Jaylah, is named after actress Jennifer Lawrence. According to screenwriter Simon Pegg, he was inspired by Lawrence’s character in her early film “Winter’s Bone” when creating Jaylah.
In contrast, the heroes’ new ally, Jaylah, whose ship also once crashed on the villains’ planet, turns out to be not as bright and interesting a character as the film initially suggests. But if Jaylah had lived up to all the advances given to her, she would have stolen the show and pushed the other heroes into the shadows. As it is, the alien played by Algerian dancer and actress Sofia Boutella (“Kingsman: The Secret Service”) occupies her plot niche and shows herself excellently in hand-to-hand combat, in which not all Starfleet officers are strong.
Humor and Drama
Telling this story of disaster and rescue, the film doesn’t forget to intersperse dynamic fragments with heartfelt dialogues and dilute the drama with humor. Moreover, the jokes in “Beyond” are witty and appropriate, without toilet humor and other tiresome Hollywood vulgarity. It’s also nice to note that the heroes repeatedly show ingenuity and, in the culmination, come up with a very entertaining way to show the villains who’s boss. Another wonderful script find by Doug Jung and Simon Pegg (who also plays Chief Engineer Scotty).
Yes, dramatically, “Beyond” is weaker than “Captain America: Civil War,” as it doesn’t pit former friends against each other and doesn’t make viewers worry about both sides of the conflict. But what is possible in superhero cinema would be ridiculous in a series with a completely different internal logic.
The Downside
Unfortunately, there is a large fly in the ointment that prevents “Beyond” from being given a high rating. For the first time in his life shooting space battles, Justin Lin made some of the film’s action scenes disorienting and incomprehensible, understandable only in retrospect. Moreover, everything works towards this unpleasant effect – strange camera angles, aggressive editing, not the most successful scene planning… This doesn’t kill the film, as “Beyond” stands not on special effects but on colorful characters. But this obvious defect is so annoying that it forces a reduction in the rating of an otherwise successful film.