When I heard that Justin Lin will be the director of Star Trek Beyond and after watching the trailers, I was in a great apprehension. I got uncertain about the beloved Star Trek franchise, with this sequel. Not having watched any Star Trek content before the 2009 reboot, I still consider myself a die hard Star Trek Fan and I grew more biased to J. J Abrams after Star Trek Into Darkness. It’s like I wanted Star Trek Beyond to fail so that J. J Abrams could come board again. But my wishes were blown into smithereens after watching this movie.

[button color=”white” size=”normal” alignment=”none” rel=”follow” openin=”samewindow” ]The Story[/button]

Star Trek Beyond is a chunk of story of the U.S.S Enterprise’s 5 year mission. Our beloved Captain James Tibirius Kirk is having second thoughts about whether to stay as the captain of the enterprise and is considering to leave. Commander Spock is also in similar dilemma, but however he makes up his mind to leave the Federation so that he can concentrate on repopulating the endangered Vulcan species. Uhura, Checkov, Bones, Sulu and Scott are following the lead of James in the 5 year mission of the Enterprise.

3 years into their mission, the Enterprise falls prey to an ambush, causing an irrevocable destruction of the Enterprise. Jim along with his crew is attacked by an anarchy fanatic known as Krall who is looking for a supposed weapon for which he goes through brutal extents to possess it. Stranded on a hostile planet Jim takes it upon himself to rescue his crew from Krall and prevent Krall from ever using the weapon.

[button color=”green” size=”normal” alignment=”none” rel=”follow” openin=”samewindow” ]The Review[/button]

[divider]The Characters [/divider]

Talking about the characters, Star Trek Beyond is a loose end on this front. In the prequels, Jim though being an over zealous personality tends to make right decision for his crew, if he generally screw things up in the first place. Spock also has the imminent capacity of being impassive all the time but warm-hearted  and passionate when the chips are down. I’ve always been a great admirer of the dynamic characteristics Spock and Jim have, which was extremely missing from the movie. I’ve also been a great fan of the friendship that sparkles between them, which was also missing from this movie.

Simon Pegg(Scott), one of the co writers of the movie, seems to have written himself quite a number of important scenes and prevented other characters to shine. In a span of 2 hours the movie couldn’t have possibly allowed every character to shine. However characters like Hikaru Sulu and Jaylah find their way. What I absolutely loved about this movie is watching Bones and Spock bonding, considering the slight amount of revulsion Bones had for Spock in the prequels.

The Hero is as good as the villain, which I think is true in this case. Krall, though having a thirst for destruction seems to fail to come out as a force to reckon with, his swan of army however is terrifying. Khan and Nero were better villains.I don’t understand why the writers decided to turn Sulu gay, what I can think of is they were trying to implement some diversity. Following the demise of Anton Yelchin(Chekov), out of sentiment I wished to see some fluctuations in Checkov’s act, which I has sobbingly deprived from.

[divider]The Plot[/divider]

The story, however brings some shocking elements. Not having seen any Star Trek content before 2009, I never expected Starship Enterprise to fall. Watching it fall harshly is one of the most emotional scenes in the movie. Animosity that Krall has with the federation is authentic but not good enough for him to go on a killing spree of the federation system. The Story doesn’t bring any tectonic shifts in the Star Trek universe, it seems like just another episode of a pop T.V show. Spock getting spoilers from the future nonetheless has potential for a great story.

[divider]The Acting[/divider]

Chris Pine portrayed the cocky captain splendidly, Zachary Quinto played the ‘now passionate’ Spock effortlessly. Zoe Saldana didn’t had much of a role and did what she could elegantly. Simon Pegg playing Scott and John Cho playing Sulu on the other hand steal the show.

What Star Trek Beyond lacks in story and character dynamics, it makes up with the action. Though I doubted Justin handling the reins of a Sci- Fi movie but I never doubted his sense of spectacle for action. The action and VFX of Star Trek Beyond are beyond amaze, it is full of adrenaline and awe. The scene where U.S.S Franklin goes up against a huge swan of enemy ships with Beastie Boys – Sabotage soundtrack playing in the background is the most enjoyable and enthralling scenes of the whole Star Trek Franchise.

[alert type=red ]For most of the movie franchise(eg Spider Man Trilogy, Godfather Trilogy) we know of, the third movie always turns out to be a huge sucker for content and experience. But Star Trek stands out of that assumption and turns out to be satisfactory film. Collectively the Star Trek Franchise is fantastic, because of the survival of this movie.[/alert]