Movie Reviews: Star Trek Beyond
The crew of the Starship Enterprise are halfway into their five year mission to explore strange new worlds. The Enterprise stops off at the star base Yorktown for some well needed shore leave. However, the crew get little time for rest as a distress call is intercepted and the Enterprise is sent to investigate. The Enterprise is soon attacked by a swarm of ships under the control of alien warlord Krall and destroyed. The crew barely has time to evacuate and they soon find themselves separated on an unknown planet. Captain Kirk and Chekov search the wreckage of the Enterprise to find a way to salvage the situation, McCoy has to contend with an injured Spock, Uhuru and Sulu are captured by the enemy and Scotty encounters Jaylah, the survival of one of Krall's previous attacks. The crew must now find a way to get off the planet and stop Krall from wreaking his revenge against the Federation.
It's safe to say that Star Trek Into Darkness split audiences. It didn't help that the movie basically remade The Wrath of Khan, which is widely regarded as the best Star Trek movie. People's poor opinion of the movie wasn't helped by occasional moments of gratuitous fanservice such as Carol Marcus appearing in her underwear for absolutely no reason. Thankfully, this movie was much better received. It was released around he time of Star Trek's 50th anniversary, so it would have had to be something special.
Thankfully this movie was more light-hearted than the previous entry. Sure, they Enterprise ended up getting destroyed by the villains, but that didn't mean that it was a totally humorous experience. This might have had something to do with the fact that the script was co-written by Scotty actor Simon Pegg.
You would have thought that having an actor co-write the script would end up giving himself all the best lines, but plenty of other people get to be funny. Jaylah gets many chances for laughs. She seemed a bit naïve, yet pretty badass at the same time. Of course, plenty of humour comes from poor old McCoy having to put up with an injured Spock. To tell you the truth, I was looking forward to more scenes involving McCoy and Spock the most.
It was incredibly sad that Chekov actor Anton Yelchin passed away shortly before the movie was released. I wonder how the next movie will explain his absence. Jaylah ends up joining Starfleet Academy in the end, so maybe she will end up becoming the Enterprise's navigator now. I would definitely like to see more from Jaylah. She was such a fun character that it would be a shame to have her appear just the once.
Four pointy hats.
Next time: The Brood
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