Movie Review: Star Trek: Beyond (2016)

The movie stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Sofia Boutella and Idris Elba.

For the most part, I enjoyed the first two movies of this Star Trek reboot but, up until last night, had not had a chance to sit down and watch the third installment. I finally did just that and, while I didn't hate this film, I found I didn't like it nearly as much as the other two films.

I'll start out by saying this movie did have some things going for it. For one, I liked how the action started relatively soon in the film, something that isn't always the case with science fiction films. And, I must admit, when the Enterprise was defeated so easily by Krall's (Elba) forces, I did wonder how Kirk (Pine) was going to pull this off.

The action scenes, as is usually the case with Star Trek films, were also fun to watch. I don't know if the later fight scenes quite lived up to the first one. But, I wasn't falling asleep during them at least (and, yes, that has happened before).

My biggest problem with this movie is it wound up being kind of predictable. For example, when Kirk discovered an old motorcycle, I knew he was going to wind up riding it at some point in the film. And, while the movie did, admittedly, try to keep the clues to Krall's real identity subtle, it wasn't overly hard to figure out who he really was. That meant the big surprise twist really wasn't that much of a surprise.

I was also kind of disappointed by Kirk's surprise ally, Jaylah (Boutella). She was a pretty cool looking alien and I loved her interaction with Scotty (Simon Pegg). But, she really didn't have anywhere near as much impact on the overall ending as I thought she would. Other than a hand-to-hand fight with one of Krall's minions (which had no winner) and hooking up a couple wires, she really didn't do that much and I feel as though her character was wasted a bit as a result.

I didn't hate the film and it did have its moments. But, compared to the other two in this trilogy (and some of the original Star Trek movies), I do feel this film was a bit of a disappointment and, at minimum, it didn't live up to my expectations.

My Grade: C