Star Trek Beyond (2016)

I’ll admit to being something of a Star Trek novice, having only seen the most recent JJ Abrams reboots and one or two of the Picard-era films (the latter, when I was too young to comprehend fully that they weren’t Star Wars). It’s a glaring absence on my nerd-bingo card, one I’ll get around to rectifying one of these days. But for now I’m content with the sporadic relationship I have with Star Trek, mostly because the new franchise hasn’t disappointed yet: Star Trek Beyond is the hat trick for the series, an engaging and exciting romp.

Several years into their “five-year mission,” the crew of the Enterprise are feeling directionless. Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is looking for a way out of his purposeless command, while Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) are having a bit of a tiff over the former’s anxiety about mortality. An opportunity to mount a rescue mission into deep space rallies the Enterprise together, only to find them falling into the hands of the murderous and mysterious Krall (Idris Elba).

Despite my misgivings about the final act of Star Trek Into Darkness, I predicted that the next film would be “a real hoot,” and I’m glad to report that I was right. Even without JJ Abrams at the directorial helm this time (you may recall he was off directing a little film about forces awakening), Justin Lin proves adept at science fiction and keeping the momentum of the film going between action sequences and conversation pieces.

Indeed, the real success of the film is the chemistry between the cast. Of course, it’s been seven years in our world, and the cast really seem to have bonded in that time, approximating the tensions and dynamics of a deep-space voyage. Everyone continues the caliber of work they’ve done previously (save Simon Pegg, who pulls double-duty on screenplay but seems more isolated from the rest of the cast), but it’s Quinto’s interactions with Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy that steal the film wholesale. The juxtaposition of sassy physician with cold logic is something I don’t recall dominating the other two to this extent (Bones was memorably paired with Kirk as POV characters for Star Trek in 2009), but I’d watch a whole movie about these two.

I would have liked to see more of Idris Elba as the antagonist, and while that’s a sentence I usually say about most movies it’s especially apt in Star Trek Beyond because I remember having a distinct feeling near the beginning of the third act that I had no clue what his motivations were. It’s a step in the opposite direction from Into Darkness, where Kirk knew that John Harrison was evil because Old Spock told him so, and Krall’s motivations are abundantly clear by the end of the film in a way that ties together a number of disparate plot threads with surprising aplomb. I don’t quite know how I might have addressed this element without giving away the twist, other than to say Elba deserves more screen time, but it strikes me as a slight tension in the film.

All told, though, the greatest compliment I can pay Star Trek Beyond is to say that it isn’t a poor impression of Guardians of the Galaxy, much as the early trailers attempted to convince us. It is purely its own thing, the first wholly original plotline that doesn’t derive its narrative momentum from the concept of an alternate timeline. In this sense, Star Trek Beyond boldly goes where no Star Trek reboot has gone before, into fresh and original storytelling that is no longer beholden to what came before.

Star Trek Beyond is rated PG-13 for “sequences of sci-fi action and violence,” which is exactly what it sounds like.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

J.J. Abrams’s 2009 preboot Star Trek (which prequelized while simultaneously rebooting the Shatner era) was fresh and original, tons of fun even to a casual filmgoer like myself, who still doesn’t fully know the difference between a Trekkie and a Tribble.  Four years later, with Star Trek Into Darkness, Abrams retains that vivacious sense of fun, even if the originality quotient is a little lower this time around.

After some back-and-forth about command, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) takes the helm of the starship Enterprise with his trusted but emotionless first officer Spock (Zachary Quinto), who’s in a bit of a lover’s quarrel with communications lieutenant Uhura (Zoe Saldana).  The Enterprise crew is called into active duty after Starfleet Commander John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) declares a one-man war against the Federation.  Pursuing Harrison into Klingon space, Kirk and the crew confront dark secrets, the threat of their own mortality, and a full consideration of what it means to be a family.

Gut reaction?  This movie is an absolute blast.  It’s as exuberantly entertaining as a summer movie ought to be, delivering laughs and action in rapid succession without much filler.  From the opening scene, which seems to channel the temple run from Raiders of the Lost Ark, through deep-space combat and shifting gravity sprints, Star Trek Into Darkness is more a mad dash than a mere trek.

It’s engaging beyond expectation, in large part because of how stunning the visuals are.  Yes, those trademark Abrams lens flares are still omnipresent (and there’s at least one scene where they actually obstruct what we’re supposed to look at), but the stark illuminated interiors of the Enterprise have never looked better.  I’m not usually that guy, but:  the 3D IMAX on Star Trek Into Darkness is one of the best visual experiences in recent history, so I’d strongly recommend the upgrade.  This movie just looks good.

The other really great thing about Star Trek Into Darkness is the cast, ensemble at its best but with compelling centers.  Pine and Quinto redouble their efforts from the first film, especially Quinto, who does a deft job balancing cool Vulcan logic with half-human gestures toward emotion.  New faces Peter Weller and Alice Eve fit in well, though one suspects Eve was cast more for her lingerie physique than anything else (which is a shame, since her Carol Marcus is a fine foil for the womanizing Kirk).  And it’s a real treat to see Simon Pegg own the role of Scotty, very nearly stealing the show were it not for Benedict Cumberbatch, the face that launched a thousand Tumblrs.  As Harrison, Cumberbatch joins a long line of talented actors who play villains who soliloquize while in captivity amid hidden plans (see also Heath Ledger, Tom Hiddleston, Javier Bardem); as a complex villain with a semi-sympathetic backstory, Cumberbatch knows when to play the pathos card and when to nosh the scenery like it’s going out of style.

Without spoiling too much, though – and perhaps true believers want to skip this paragraph just in case – where the first film quite deliberately distanced itself from the original franchise, Star Trek Into Darkness wears its affiliation on its sleeve so transparently that even someone who’s never seen the earlier films (namely, me) can see the references a mile away.  For my money, the end result is an entertaining success – and a movie only has to be entertaining to get a good review from me – but the retreads only call attention to themselves, thereby pulling the audience out of the film, however briefly.  A cameo by Leonard Nimoy, though invited by the first film, is the first misstep in a train of callbacks that, again, are too unsubtle not to be cited here.  Longtime fans may relish these references; others may find them tedious and repetitive.  Again, it ends up working, but I can’t help but wonder what the writers might have devised had they fully unfettered themselves from their forebearers.

All told, Star Trek Into Darkness is a smash success of a summer movie, well worth those two hours and fistfuls of popcorn you won’t begrudge.  And in 3D IMAX, all the merrier.  Even if we have to wait through a five-year mission where no man et cetera et cetera, Star Trek 3 ought to be a real hoot.

Star Trek Into Darkness is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.”  Spaceships and lasers and fistfights, oh my.