[brawndo_mom]

The Things I Do for YOU! (Star Trek Beyond movie review)


Yesterday, just for you, we spent 8 hours  - EIGHT HOURS!!! - at a theater in Chicago, watching at Star Trek Reboot Marathon – Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond (in a pre-release date reveal) shown, in order.

And, well, let me just quote Movie Bob.

"Go see it."

Really: go see it.

Star Trek Beyond is not a drop dead, fabulous, mind-blowing cinematic event, but boy oh boy, it's really good. And it's Star Trek good, going back to the roots of what ST was for a lot of us: a character-driven story about people we've come to know and love.

Yes, there's pew-pew-pew and new bad guys and new good guys – but at its core, this movie is what I've wanted to see from ST for a long time, and what I think they missed in so many of the movies – a really good story that's focused around the people, not the special effects.

I think that's due, in huge part, to the fact that Simon Pegg was involved in writing the script (with co-writer Doug Jung). I love Simon Pegg's other movies, including Hot Fuzz, World's End, and Shaun of the Dead. They were dead-pan funny and character driven, and spent considerable time exploring the relationships between the characters – and that all shows here.

Without giving away too much, we're three years into the famous five-year mission of the Enterprise – and three years has changed the crew. (My son and his friend pointed out the fact that the original series only lasted three years of its five year mission, a fact of which I'm sure the writers were quite aware.) It's well handled in the script, the acting and the filling/editing, and comes across as feeling quite genuine – that same feeling you get after you've been at the same job for years, and you begin to consider that maybe it's time for a change from the same ol', same ol'.

After an unsuccessful diplomatic mission, Kirk and crew head off to Yorktown, a starbase in the depths of a barely explored region of space. I use the term starbase loosely: think less ESD and more Defera meets a Dyson sphere – though that doesn't do it the credit it deserves. After a few convos that will drive later parts of the story, they head off to help an alien whose ship and crew have been caught and taken hostage on the far side of a debris filled nebula.

Let's just say that things don't work out as intended, and, as Sov predicted, the ship gets destroyed. Fabulously destroyed. Not realistic given the physics, but it's still quite a take down, and, as a result, the crew is scattered across an Earth-like planet.

And this is where the story starts to get really good. Bones and Spock wind up stranded together and we get some really nice interplay between the two, with McCoy getting to be more than grumpy grizzled Southern doctor, and Spock continuing to explore his personal evolution and friendship, all reminiscent of TOS.

Scotty gets separated from the others, meets up with an alien (Jaylah, played by Sofia Boutella) who is as technologically brilliant in her way as he is (and does a more than decent job of doing some serious butt-kicking. It may have been a stunt double for some of the scenes, but it really appeared that the actress could at least do some nice kicks on her own.) Of course we have some ST techno clichés from Scotty, but they're fun homages to the original series, and they work well in the story. The final techno solution to the alien ships is both cliché and homage, and they own up to it (but it really works, especially if you've seen the first JJ movie. Seeing all three in a row really, really pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of each movie and their interrelations, btw – if you get the chance to see one of these marathon events, it's worth the eight hours.)

Kirk and Chekov get paired up, as do Sulu and Uhura – both of which are unusual pairings and really worked nicely as we get to see a little more of characters we don't always see. (I love John Cho, and I think he is often underutilized in the series. I would have loved to see more of him in this one – and a little less Uhura. Zoe Saldana's take on Uhura always feels smug to me, which was way out of place as the character in the first movie, and left her little room to grow.)

The biggest issue I have with this movie is the villain, Krall, played by Idris Elba. I love Idris Elba. I loved him in Luther, I adored him in Pacific Rim. Here he's playing Krall (and I'm not going to go into too much about him, because I don't want to spoil it) – but we don't see enough of him or hear enough about him and not enough of the plot focuses on why he's doing what he's doing. By focusing so heavily on the seven ST characters, there's not enough time spent on him – and the story suffers a bit from it as well as not really explaining why he needed the... no, you go see it, and then will talk about that!

(A caveat: we saw the movie in 3D, and were fairly close to the screen – not something I recommend. Even at the center of the theater, your attention gets pulled to one side of the action or the other, and maybe a re-watching will reveal more of his role in the story. If you opt for 3D (and it is well done) sit WAY back. I'll rewatch it at a different theater, both in 3 and 2D and see if that affects the way I visualize the events – and yes, I'm going back.)

I'm going to leave the plot stuff there – go see it for yourself – and focus on why this works so well.

If you don’t want to know any spoilers, stop here.

Well, don't stop. Go see it – NOW! -  and we can chat more on line later.

SPOILERS – well, SPOILERS-lite!

I think this is the first time any of the Star Trek movies really strives to touch the emotional spots of the audience. After watching Into Darkness immediately before this, you realize that almost everyone cries in that movie; in this one, they follow Helen Hayes' famous direction: If you (the actor) cries, the audience doesn't.

Here the deeper emotions are subtle and underplayed rather than overt.  The movie pays a very loving homage to Leonard Nimoy in the body of the plot as well as with a closing 'In Memory" credit, and Spock Prime's passing is incorporated beautifully into the script. It affects the characters, and they respond to it as we would to the loss of anyone dear to us (and indeed, as many of us did IRL and in game when he died last year.)

Kirk has finally grown up: he's no longer the brash womanizing jerk of the first two films, and we see the toll that three years has taken on him. (Chris Pine, who is not my favorite actor, really pulls this off well. He's completely believable in the plot and it works beautifully. He is not playing Shatner's Kirk: this is his character and he owns it.)

Sulu's being gay is barely addressed; it's there, but given about as much import as any other couple's relationships. It doesn't dismiss it, it doesn't glorify it: it simply is, and no more or less significant than the relationships of anyone else on the ship.

There are many subtle references to the series and the earlier, non JJ movies. A picture of the original bridge crew is in Spock Prime's belongings; Kirk muttering about tearing another shirt; Kirk's birthday is approaching – ala Wrath of Khan – but culminates at the end of the story in a manner almost reminiscent of "All Good Things"...

The hardest part about watching this movie is knowing that Anton Yelchin died shortly after production. Watching the development of Chekov as a character, and knowing that Yelchin will not be playing him again makes his appearance poignant. There is a memorial card for him at the end, following Leonard Nimoy's, and again, it's touching in its simplicity.

END OF SPOILERS – You can come back now!

At the end of the film, as we were leaving, we were chatting with the other geeks - I mean movie goers -  and while everyone seemed to really have enjoyed STB, the matter of which of the three was best was quite divided. Personally, I think this may be my favorite - but I'll have to see it a few more times to be sure.

So... if you like ST for the relationships that were exemplified in the TV series, I think you'll be quite pleased with this journey around the galaxy. If you like ST for the effects and pew pew pew, maybe a little less so, but it still delivers quite well on both accounts.

Last and not least... only a little lens flare!

BTW, ST#4 is being written.

Let me know what you think!

Mom