Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Genre

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Director

Justin Lin

Country

USA

Cast

Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Joe Taslim, Lydia Wilson, Sara Maria Forsberg, Deep Roy, Danny Pudi, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Greg Grunberg, Melissa Roxburgh, Anita Brown, Doug Jung, Dan Payne, Sean Whigham

Storyline

The USS Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a new ruthless enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test.

Opinion

After weeks, I've finally managed to see one of the films that I've been waiting for the most this year. Just like I always do, I went in without knowing anything about the plot, I just trusted the film to be good because of the cast and previous entries. I didn't even bother checking other people's reviews or scores on websites such as Rotten Tomatoes. I just didn't want to be influenced. And it probably was a smart move, because the high rating on Rotten Tomatoes would have had my expectations soar only to see them fall down while watching the film. What am I trying to say? That "Star Trek Beyond" is a bland, flat and forgettable film.

The film does have some positive aspects, but first I'm going to talk about the enormous amount of flaws, starting from the story. It is paper thin and atrociously dull and filled with so many plot holes it would sink if it was a ship. It has no depth whatsoever - not that I was expecting a philosophical film still -, and it doesn't give you a reason to care for the good guys. Nor for the bad guys for the matter.

And since I'm talking about bad guys, I have to mention the villain, Krall. Since I'm avoiding you spoilers, I'll just say that his motivations are never really clear. Unfortunately that's not the only problem with him. He doesn't even have a proper backstory. Almost as if kids wrote the screenplay. And the worst part is that Idris Elba doesn't deliver anything but a one-dimensional villain. But at least he is not putting his face in this mess.

Next stop the action. Probably it's because everything was going too fast and there were too many different camera shots all together, but the action sequences were quite a mess and uninteresting. You can tell this film was "directed" by Justin Lin because the action is completely unrealistic, like on "Furious 7". Starships are indestructible, gravity doesn't exist anymore.

I'm finally getting to the good stuff. Well, kinda. While Chris Pine does a quite good job and manages to carry the emotional weight of the film, and Zoe Saldana acts quite well, as always, the rest of the cast is a mess. Especially Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban. They usually give solid performances but this time they were flat as a board. I won't even waste time mentioning the rest of the cast.

Now it's coming the good stuff. There are a few moments that had me smiling, some other moments that are kinda sad - like the tributes to Leonard Nimoy -, the CGI is great - definitely what one would expect from a Star Trek flick - and the music is really good.

Is that enough to make up for the cost of the ticket? I don't think so. My suggestion then? Just pretend like this film just doesn't exist and enjoy the previous two films.