Star Trek Beyond
A genuinely funny and delightful film brought to by the director of most of the Fast and Furious sequels.
Overview
If you scan the list of all time highest grossing films, you'll find the top 100 films filled with an overwhelming amount of sequels, screen adaptations and revivals - Jurassic World, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, The Avengers, Furious 7, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II and Iron Man 3 all take their spots on the top ten. In fact, the only anomalies in the top ten is cinematic genius James Cameron's two originals Titanic and Avatar, which take the first and second slot respectively.
The point is, the film industry knows that story brands are powerful and once people get hooked on a particular character or story they will keep coming back for more and turning out their wallets in the process. Which is why I think we're seeing this populist cinematic reboot of the passionately loved Star Trek TV series crop up in cinemas. Star Trek Beyond is the third of the new series, and with its strong and well-loved name and solid-but-fun storyline the film should see some decent earnings and hopefully a spot on that top 100 list too.
The plot follows one of the classic sci-fi templates. A giant spacecraft travels through spacetime into uncharted territory. A ruthless, unknown enemy attacks them. For some reason they don't have signal to call back to wherever they came from for help. They now need to use all the ingenuity and sass that they have to fight back and for the survival of the universe/mankind.
While it's no experimental piece of genius, the film has a good story arc, genuinely funny one-liners, some decent political nods and all the pretty SFX that you could need to walk out after its 122-minute run time to feel completely satisfied.
Many expect Star Trek films to be closed off for die-hard fans only, much the like critically acclaimed Lost TV series, but instead, it's incredibly open to the uninitiated. Justin Lin (of Fast and Furious fame), who took over the director's seat from JJ Abrams for the third Star Trek film, isn't expecting you to walk into the film with a dense catalogue of background knowledge of the Star Trek series to flip through and refer to throughout the film. In that respect it is quite dissimilar to the TV series, which might aggravate die-hard Trekkies who revel in the exclusivity of their depth of fandom. To be fair, there are some sentimental nods to the old series, but nothing's lost in the plot if you don't pick them up.
Much of that is to thank, I think, mostly to Simon Pegg who co-wrote the film with Doug Jung. Pegg's known for writing Shaun of the Dead and The World's End as well as starring in almost every good pop sci-fi/zombie film that has come out in the last decade. Approachable, slightly geeky but funny as hell movies are this man's niche and Star Trek Beyond ticks all those boxes. A little help from Chris Pine's star power and pretty boy looks doesn't go amiss either.
Star Trek Beyond is an entertaining film and deserves a watch, even if you don't have a long history with Star Trek. It's both a homage to the old and open enough to welcome newcomers into the world of Star Trek as well.
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