Star Trek Beyond, 2016
Directed by Justin Lin, 122 minutes
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella
Review by Katherine Scheetz
The familiar ‘dings’ of the Star Trek Beyond theme begin and the nerd neurons anticipate “Space: the final frontier.”
We pick up with the crew of The Enterprise part-way through their five-year mission: exploring new lands, seeking out new civilizations and generally getting into trouble in the way only Captain James T. Kirk (Pine) can.
After a breezy, slapdash escape from hostile natives, we are captain-log narrated through an update on how the vast and diverse crew of The Enterprise have been dealing with the grueling five-year assignment. Spock (Quinto) and Uhura (Saldana) have broken up due to Vulcan procreation logic. Sulu (Cho) is married with a husband and daughter off-ship. And love or hate the newly written sexuality to the character, you can’t deny how cute the Sulu family is. Chekov (Yelchin) remains the fumbling young bachelor, still getting thrown out of rooms by girls and Bones (Urban) deflects with sarcasm, as per usual.
During a brief touch down at Starbase Yorktown where we learn Kirk has applied for a transfer off-ship and Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) has passed away, a call for aid leads the group on one last mission together through an uncharted nebula and into – wait for it – the beyond. Evil baddie Krall (Elba) is squatting and plotting on a planet nearby as is one of Krall’s escaped would-be victims Jaylah, played by Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) Sofia Boutella, who once again turns her fight scenes into a dance. Star Trek Beyond is the third time this year that Idris Elba’s voice has seduced us (Zootopia, The Jungle Book) and frankly, it’s one hell of a voice.
With Fast and Furious director/producer Justin Lin at the helm the franchise has acquired new fans and momentum that was lost in the last installment, Star Trek Into Darkness(2013).
Beyond works, even with its breakneck pace and antigravity fight scenes that have you going cross-eyed. It works because it plays like a giant episode of the 1960s Star Trek show. There’s crew banter, a little introspection and then BAM they are in a pickle on a new planet with new people and they have to figure out how to get Scotty (Pegg) to beam them up.
The quippy, upbeat script is the product of Simon Pegg, who plays the ship’s engineer Scotty, and Doug Jung, who plays Sulu’s husband. Pegg has a resume of comedy writing including Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), apparent in the excessive amount of one-liners that honestly just make the cast even more lovable.
It’s a fitting final performance for Yelchin, who will always be remembered for his endearing portrayal of Chekov. We just wish it wasn’t his final performance.
Out-of-this-world end credits followed by memorials to both Yelchin and Nimoy seal the deal. Embrace your inner Trekkie and go.
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