It’s finally Star Trek season and the latest installment in the modern Star Trek reboot is out in theaters around the world. Star Trek Beyond marks a special moment in Star Trek history, celebrating the 50th birthday of this storied franchise. After all this waiting, Beyond is finally out and Trekkies will surely want to watch it regardless of what reviews say.
But we’re going to give you a review roundup anyway.
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Director Justin Lin helmed this Star Trek project, and most reviews of the movie have been more positive than the last installment. Beyond is maybe more humorous than expected at times, but it’s also packed with action that Star Trek fans want to see. However, it’s also not the greatest Star Trek movie from the sound of things, and many reviewers were left hoping for a better movie in the upcoming sequel.
The battles are spectacular when it comes to special effects, but also “generic, and boring,” as The Wall Street Journal explains. The Enterprise gets destroyed — we already knew that from the trailers, so no spoiler here — and the team has to overcome difficulties at every corner to deal with the newly discovered threat.
Read The Wall Street Journal’s review at this link.
The villain, Krall (Idris Elba) could be a great character for Star Trek Beyond, but that’s hardly the case. “[Krall] winds up as about as generic a baddie as the Trek movies have provided to date. His manifesto amounts to ‘Unity is bad, fighting is good, so the Federation should die,’ which barely counts as a bumper sticker, let alone a meaningful credo,” The Verge notes.
Read The Verge’s review at this link.
Krall, however, is responsible for the destruction of the Enterprise, which is one of the highlights of the movie, so at least we have that.
There’s also a new character worth mentioning in the film who doesn’t come from the regular Star Trek cast, “the sprightly new heroine named Jaylah (Sofia Boutella),” as The New Yorker describes her.
Read The New Yorker’s review at this link.
Writers Simon Pegg (who plays Scotty) and Doug Jung may have colored inside the lines, as The New York Times puts it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for Trekkies who expect a certain consistency from this type of action-packed space movie.
“Not every wheel needs reinventing, and one of the abiding pleasures of Star Trek, in its old and newer iterations, lies in its balance of stubborn consistency and canny inventiveness,” the Times notes. But, at the same time, the movie might not have anything surprising in it, when comparing it to previous episodes and most blockbuster films.
Read The New York Times’ review at this link.
With all that in mind, you’d think Star Trek Beyond isn’t a movie to see in theaters, but that’s not exactly the case. Even if many directorial and screenplay decisions were criticized in reviews, the general impression still seems to be that Beyond isn’t a dud. The Journal’s conclusion best summarizes that idea. “Star Trek Beyond is better than not-bad. By any earthly standard it’s good,” the review reads.
In fact, Forbes thinks the movie is better than J.J. Abrams’ previous two movies. “Star Trek Beyond maintains the best aspects of the first two reboot films, but ups the humor and — most importantly — the character development and relationships. The result is far more emotional impact than either of the previous reboot entries and more than any of the Next Generation films,” the review says.
Read Forbes’ review at this link
