Kirk and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin) dodge the death rays of a small woman with a large rubber brain-pan and then slide down what’s left of the Enterprise’s saucer section. The characters are thrown to the winds, leaving them crashed down on Altamid in groups of two. The crew can’t reach Yorktown or other starships because a storm has knocked out the phone lines - no, actually, it’s because they’re inside a nebula - and you know what that means. Most of Star Trek Beyond is set on the blue planet Altamid, where the Enterprise is destroyed with sadistic thoroughness, taken apart by scores of little ships that swarm and strike like bees. So what if his shots streak by so fast you can only half-follow the action? Coherence is a small price to pay for beauty. (The scenes were shot in Dubai, the continued existence of which seems a shakier prospect than Yorktown’s.) From the moment the starship glides into port, it’s clear that Lin’s visual imagination dwarfs that of his predecessor, J.J. Can these two really be on their way out in only the third movie? It seemed like a setup to me.īut you can forget the jacked-up drama once the Enterprise arrives at Yorktown, a pretzel-tiered metropolis full of CGI and actors with elaborate makeup jobs in the middle of space. Spock (Zachary Quinto), too, is itching to leave the Enterprise, in his case to rebuild the lost civilization of Vulcan. This seemed very strange, given that he was handed the command of the Federation’s flashiest vessel straight out of Starfleet Academy (shouldn’t he have served on other ships first?) and that Pine looks as if he’d still be carded when buying beer. He wants to leave the untethered world of starships and settle down as an admiral on terra firma - or anywhere firma. Early in Star Trek Beyond, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) stares forlornly into the distance. Not that the script - by actor Simon Pegg and Doug Jung - doesn’t pretend to aim high. It’s better to have a well-made, unapologetic action-adventure like this one than a creepy stab at replication. The new, slavishly imitative cast members haven’t made these characters their own, and there’s an eerie quality to their attempts - as if the future will bring not just starships and teleportation but also androids replacing long-dead actors. But in some ways it’s a relief to leave that more deliberate universe behind.
Of course, “fast” and “furious” are adjectives that “classic” Trek fans loved the series for not being. The new Star Trek picture - called, for no particular reason, Star Trek Beyond - is a wild ride, fast and crazy kinetic, a bombardment in the manner of the Fast and the Furious movies by the same director, Justin Lin. Photo: Kimberly French/Paramount Pictures