Beyond brings fun back to Trek
Star Trek Beyond (M, 122 mins) Oh the relief, to realise that after the two mostly excellent JJ Abrams-directed films ( Star Trek in 2009 and Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013), we can now just exhale and stop feeling we have to re-invent and re-parse the wheel with every iteration of this franchise.
Because Star Trek Beyond is exactly what a Star Trek movie only ever really needs to be – a great episode. No more, no less.
New-to-the-franchise director Justin Lin obviously comes from a place of deep fandom. His first spin in the captain’s chair (after helming four – including the superb last instalment – episodes in the Fast and Furious series) is nothing less than a love letter to the 1960s original series, albeit one made with a budget that could have bought you an actual spaceship in 1960s dollars.
The film sees the core crew marooned across a wide swathe of one of those unknown alien planets the old USS Enterprise used to happen across pretty much every Sunday evening at around 7.30pm.
Your archetypal lizard-skinned and deranged bad-guy – nicely turned in by Idris Elba under a couple of kilos of face-putty and sporting a disconcertingly occasional Glaswegian bouncer’s patois – has mayhem on his mind and only the combined forces of our crew of disparate oddballs can stop him.
The lesson here – as it always was – is that nothing but honesty, inter-racial harmony and a few timely one-liners can save the galaxy. But the fact that Beyond follows that timeless kaupapa to the letter was enough to have me practically up and cheering in my seat.
In the leads, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban and company are all as fine as they have ever been. While the final appearance of Anton Yelchin as Chekov is a sad reminder of what a rare and irreplaceable talent Yelchin truly was.
I hope, I truly do, that Star Trek Beyond marks a return to a real golden age of big-screen cinema, with Star Wars and now Star Trek now both seemingly back on track and delivering exactly what we hope for. Way-hey!