Film review: Star Trek Beyond is one rollicking adventure

REVIEW: The 13th Star Trek movie is not the best ever churned out by the long-running sci-fi franchise, but it’s certainly the best-looking.

Star Trek Beyond (M)

Director: Justin Lin (Fast & Furious 6)

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella.

Rating: ***

Still living long ... and prospering

The 13th Star Trek movie is not the best ever churned out by the long-running sci-fi franchise.

However, it is certainly the best-looking. The visuals that depict the latest deep-space exploits of Captain James T. Kirk and his loyal Starfleet crew are often nothing short of awe-inspiring.

While Star Trek Beyond absolutely delivers as a pure, pulse-raising spectacle, it is also none too shabby as a rollicking adventure yarn.

Dedicated Trekkers will immediately detect that the experience plays out like an extended TV episode — this isn’t a movie big on character development or sophisticated themes — but won’t mind getting caught up in the relentless rush and hustle of it all.

In abandoning the po-faced bombast of 2013’s Into Darkness, Beyond’s openly crowd-pleasing line of attack is more than apt, considering this year marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek’s small-screen premiere.

Star Trek Beyond absolutely delivers as a pure, pulse-raising spectacle.

Let’s barrel right past the early, scene-setting stuff in Star Trek Beyond, which isn’t of much note aside from flagging that Kirk (Chris Pine) is considering leaving the Enterprise for a high-ranking desk job back on Earth.

The movie hits a winning warp speed once the action switches to the far-flung locale of Altamid, an inhospitable (but relatively inhabitable) planet shrouded on all sides by a highly unstable nebula system.

Speaking of highly unstable, it is a surprise attack by the vicious warrior Krall (Idris Elba) that leaves the Enterprise all but destroyed. Comms are down, and its surviving crew are dispersed across a wide area of the planet.

Kirk and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) are crossing a wilderness region on foot in the company of a doublecrossing alien, Kalara (Lydia Wilson).

Uhuru (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Chu), are being held captive.

Bones (Karl Urban) and a seriously incapacitated Spock (Zachary Quinto) are on a similarly aimless trek across uncharted territory, only with better banter.

Tech wiz Scotty (Simon Pegg, who also co-wrote the lively script) is faring best of the lost crew, having joined forces with a resourceful alien warrior Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) who knows the whereabouts of another stricken Starfleet craft.

As for Uhuru (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Chu), they are being held captive by Krall, who spends most of his time on Altamid hunting for a mystical doodad that will help him wreak a horrible final revenge on the Federation.

With the lengthy middle act of Star Trek Beyond opening up on multiple fronts, director Justin Lin (a veteran of four Fast & Furious instalments) doesn’t have to do much more to keep boredom at bay than swiftly cross from one grouping of stranded Enterprisers to another.

Of course, it helps no end that Lin also has the luxury of several exciting set-piece action sequences to fall back on, and each one of them hits the pleasure centre of Trek fans with a bullseye.

This is not to say Beyond is without plot holes that remain unsatisfactorily unfilled. Furthermore, Elba’s work as Krall doesn’t quite register with the menacing impact intended.

Nevertheless, this always-entertaining production keeps the Star Trek experience alive and alert at a juncture in the franchise’s history where it might have coasted along on the strength of familiar former glories.