★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
2016’s summer of so-so cinema is finally invigorated with
the arrival of this absolutely barnstorming entry in the rebooted Star Trek universe, as J.J. Abrams hands
over the bridge to Fast & Furious alumnus
Justin Lin. Soon after the Enterprise crew respond to a plea for help in
uncharted space, they find themselves shipwrecked on a desolate world. Stranded,
scattered and on the run from the murderous Krall (Idris Elba), Kirk, Spock and
co. must forge alliances with fellow maroon Jaylah (Kingsman’s Sofia
Boutella) to prevent the pebble-faced villain from retrieving an alien artefact
of immense power.
That’s not so much a setup than the essence of Star Trek Beyond: it’s an episode of the
original series writ large, where teamwork and problem-solving trumps the
point-and-shoot method that Abrams’ preceding films were more than occasionally
guilty of. As if tonal allusions to the TV show weren’t enough, we also get the
classic distress call setup, a rocky planet environment likely filmed in a quarry
and many scenes of Kirk punching alien baddies in the face. Any state-of-the-art,
whizz-bang special effects work is placed at either end of the picture, to
serve as bookends for the main narrative thrust. When the shooting starts up
again in the gob-smacking finale, the ship-to-ship spectacle is outrageously entertaining,
and I doubt we’ll find a more brilliantly grin-inducing use of music in a
blockbuster this year. Michael Giacchino’s score, alternately twinkly and brash, is as magical as ever, and a consistent visual aesthetic is
maintained by cinematographer Stephen Windon evoking the swooping style of
previous DoP Dan Mindel, but with minimal smearing of lens flares.
With the Kirk and Spock relationship fleshed out
considerably in Trek and Into Darkness, Beyond focuses on the unity of the crew as a whole, something that proves
Lin’s experience with the latter-day, family-centric Fast movies indispensable. We get to see more interaction between Kirk
and Chekov (the late Anton Yelchin is frantically engaging as he has ever
been), Uhura and Sulu are placed shoulder-to-shoulder, whilst Spock and Bones
are left alone together for a large chunk of the narrative, allowing for some
lovely old-married-couple bickering: Quinto and Urban really have their
respective characters down to a tee. Simon Pegg (as co-writer this time around)
gives Scotty an awful lot more to do, but when the curmudgeonly engineer’s
bemused interactions with Boutella’s no-nonsense Jaylah (a new female Trek character not introduced as a love
interest, whatever next?) are so endearing, there’s little room for complaint.
Though, while we’re on the subject, I do have a niggle or
two: for all its visual invention (the orb city of Yorktown is easily the best
spaceward treat for the eyes since Gravity)
and vigour, the finale stretches on past breaking point, while Krall’s
motivations are revealed far too late to hold any true significance: his insistance on tearing the crew apart to demonstrate their reliance on unity was far more involving than his eventual justification for destruction.
However, a film that can have me smiling ear-to-ear from start-to-finish
just by re-introducing characters, spaceships, musical cues and even sound
effects that I genuinely love is so difficult to dislike. Sure, I may be
blinded by nostalgia (bizarre, considering that only five years ago I wouldn’t
touch Trek with a ten foot pole), but
in a summer blockbuster season that has so consistently failed to deliver
thrills of any kind, nostalgic or otherwise, I’ll be boldly going back to this
one. Thataway!