Star Trek: Beyond Review

Star Trek is back on the big screen once again with the third installment of the reboot franchise 'Star Trek: Beyond' with Capt. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Co. facing their toughest challenge yet. Krall (Idris Elba) an alien mutant who can suck out one's life force faces off with the iconic space crew. After destroying the Enterprise and capturing most of the crew, it's up to Kirk, Spock, and a few other members to free the hostages and beat Krall before he kills off everybody. Can our heroes save the day once again?

The strength of this movie is how much attention to detail is given to recreate the original show while also being its own unique film. For example, the majority of the film is our heroes trying to methodically figure out what's going on and plan out a strategy to help them win. The original show featured many scenes where the characters would talk it out and try to survey their choices before taking the allegedly appropriate course of action. What makes this film unique is that while is does have a few callbacks to the original show, it still featured audience pleasing action scenes and a fun sense of humor too. It's a solid blend of action, intelligence, and humor that creates this delicious combination that certainly packs a powerful punch.

The villain of this movie is my idea of a villain done right, Krall may not have had as much screen time as some main villains do but that doesn't matter. He manages to come off as an intimidating threat and easily gives a sense of fear to the audience. This makes the tension much stronger, which in turn leads to good drama. Much like the 1982 film 'Wrath of Kahn' Idris Elba creates a performance that gives the character a decently strong presence. He does this by playing it straight as a cold and calculating monster while Montalban was delightfully chilling and a bit hammy in the role. Furthermore I do feel the sense that this means business and just might BEAT Kirk. Which makes it all the more thrilling when he loses.

The only real flaws in the movie are a few CGI shots/effects that looked a little fake a few times in the film and the continued romance between Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Zoe Saldana's character. It didn't really add anything to the story, you know that they're just going to get back together, so it doesn't affect the story in any way. At least in 'Into Darkness' they played it up more and it had a bigger role in the story. Here it's just barely noticeable and forgettable. Aside from those flaws I'd highly recommend seeing it if you're a fan or if you're just an average moviegoer looking for a good time.