Review of Star Trek Beyond (2016) by Lunazen111 — 22 Jul 2016

I was really so incredibly disappointed in this movie. By the middle of the film, there was no going back for me. Hated it more than Insurrection and Nemesis. My sons (17 and 24), raised on Trek and fans of action films in their own right, hated this movie as much as I did. This is TREK! Not some empty-headed, existing only for thrills and profit "summer blockbuster" action film. Such a shame...

It was so terrible, it doesn't even deserve eloquence in a review. Instead, a list:

The BAD.

1. The action. Good God, the action. Way too much of it, way too dark and hard to see, way too blurry, too much use of camera shake, far too disjointed and ambiguous in communicating there wheres/whys/hows/whos, and stupidly unrealistic. Kirk is a human, not a superhero. The physical feats accomplished at points were simply too ridiculous to enjoy.

2. The science was shoddy as hell, making the black hole concept in the first reboot seem entirely credible by comparison.

3. The cliched one liners. We get it. It's Trek. Being a Trek fan for 38 or my 43 years, I'm all into the iconic things that make the characters who they are. But it needs to go BEYOND the cliches. After all these years, depth of character is possible, welcome and expected... not these one dimensional facades we were given in STB. After an hour of mindbogglingly boring action sequences, I found myself not able to care about the forced heart-to-hearts between characters. Too little, too late.

4. Speaking of one dimensional... the bad guy. Who cares? I certainly didn't. He was just Generic Bad Guy. His motivations, which were largely missing for 99% of the film, once revealed were simply silly. Fabricated. Under-developed. Vacuous.

5. Considering the enormous amount of destruction, I was baffled by Kirk's relative lack of reaction. We all know his ship is his baby. Where was the emotion? Where was the urgency in evacuation orders when it was clear, within minutes, that there was not a chance of saving Her?

6. Music as a weapon? Give me a break, please... PLEASE!

The GOOD (which all together elevate this review to a 1).

1. The box.

2. The space dock concept was interesting.

3. The dedications at the end.

I'm going to file this film away with The Last Airbender, The Phantom Menace and every Chuck Norris movie ever made as being UNWATCHABLE & ENTIRELY FORGETTABLE.

Such a shame.