Movie review: Beyond

Movie Review: Star Trek Beyond

There’s an old vaudeville joke about the fourth wife of a gentlemen and the honeymoon; she may know what’s expected of her, but she’s not sure how to make it interesting.  That sums up the problem with the Star Trek movies in a nutshell.  After 50 years (50!) we want our Star Trek movies to meet our expectations and also surprise us.  That may be too much to ask.

The latest incarnation in the Star Trek saga is Beyond, although “Yawn” might be a more apt title.  It hits all the familiar Trek tropes—Spock and McCoy bicker, Scotty does magic in engineering, a seemingly invincible foe is overcome by Kirk’s ingenuity and daring.  The movie is light on Kirk’s womanizing, as the main female in the film seems more interested in Scotty than Kirk, but then the actor playing Scotty (Simon Pegg) co-wrote the screenplay, so that explains that.

The plot is more straightforward than the plot to Into Darkness, thank goodness.  An unknown alien arrives at the Starbase Yorktown with a story about how her ship was attacked on the other side of some space cloud, and of course Kirk, who is contemplating transfer to a desk assignment, naturally volunteers to investigate.  Upon arrival the Enterprise is set upon by the same entity that attacked the alien.  The Enterprise is overcome by a swarm of seemingly tens of thousands of small one-or-two man ships that easily slice through defenses designed to stop Romulan Birds of Prey and other large destroyers.  The crew evacuates and find themselves on different parts of the planet below.

Of course Spock (Zachary Quinto) and McCoy (Karl Urban) end up together so they can carry on like an old married couple.  Kirk (Chris Pine, once again doing an admirable job of filling William Shatner’s shoes) ends up with Checkov (the late Anton Yelchin) on the wreckage of the saucer section.  Scotty lucks out and is rescued by an attractive alien (Sophia Boutella) who wields a mean quarterstaff.  It is debatable which Scotty finds more attractive, her physique or the fact that she jury rigged a derelict star fleet vessel into working as her home.

The plotting is sloppy and slipshod, not surprising given that this was Pegg’s first experience with a science fiction screenplay.  For example, I was convinced that the make-up department had done a bad job on the main villain, Krall (Idris Elba), because his alien make-up seemed inconsistent.  Very late in the film it is revealed that he somehow has the power to alter his appearance; this is information that should have been clarified and explained earlier.

Also unexplained is the main big bad, some device that somehow could kill everyone on Starbase Yorktown, or any planet.  It serves the same purpose as the red goop in the first Star Trek reboot in 2009, when a small drop destroyed the planet Vulcan (or for that matter the Infinity Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy).  What is it?  We don’t know.  How does it work? If the screenwriters told us, then someone might nitpick the science and tell the internet.  So just accept that it can kill lots of people.

Of course since we don’t know how it works, that makes Kirk’s plan to stop it equally arbitrary.  And man, is it arbitrary.  It reminded me of what I perceive to be the difference between the original Trek in the 1960’s and the Next Gen version—in the original Trek, a problem would be posed in the first 10 minutes, and Kirk spent the next 45 minutes looking for a solution; on Next Gen, Picard took 45 minutes to figure out what the problem was, then ordered Giordi to push a button to fix it.  It is impossible to feel ANY tension in the ending because we know Kirk isn’t going to fail, the seemingly invincible enemy has a flaw, and Starbase Yorktown won’t have piles of corpses lining its nice shiny streets at the end.

How can you make a dramatic movie if there are no stakes?  The original movies solved the problem brilliantly by killing Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  After that there was no assurance that Sulu or Uhuru might survive the next movie.  At least for a while.

This is the problem with the recent spate of superhero movies.  Who’s going to die at the end of Captain America 3: Civil War?  Will Superman kill Batman, or vice versa?  And who cares if the endings are predictable, when Superman v. Batman: Dawn of Justice gets universally panned and still makes “only” $875 million worldwide?  Or Suicide Squad gets mediocre reviews and still laps up $135 million domestic on its opening weekend?  Filmmakers keep giving us unsatisfying screenplays because a) they are demanded by the studios and b) they make money anyway (except of course the Fantastic Four reboot; nothing could save that).

I can’t fault director Justin Lin, taking over directing duties from J. J. Abrams.  Lin is a fantastic director, as proven by his contributions to the Fast and Furious franchise (not to mention the Community paintball episode; yes, that was his last credit before Fast Five).  No one could make this oatmeal into a five course meal.

I’ve wondered about Abrams’ contribution since the Star Trek reboot.  That film had some great tweaks on the Trek-verse, from Uhuru being with Spock instead of Kirk to Spock meeting Spock Prime.  However, the central plot had numerous holes that were filled by simple good will towards the franchise. Then in Into Darkness, Abrams’ doubled back and tried to remaking Star Trek II with similar tweaks; as Scotty once said, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” 

What made the original Star Trek great was NOT Gene Roddenberry’s “optimism” but the fact that they hired honest to goodness science fiction writers like Harlan Ellison and Theodore Sturgeon because there were no sci-fi writers in TV at the time.  Now we get a movie script co-written by non-SF writer Simon Pegg, who is gifted at comedy but doesn’t think in science fiction terms. 

Star Trek 4 has been green-lit; here is hoping they bring in a better writer because after Into Darkness and Beyond the move franchise is on life support.