It’s been awhile since I’ve been to the theater because this summer has consistently dropped stinkers upon the masses and I’m glad to say that the public isn’t buying into the garbage. The latest Star Trek film was just released yesterday and this was one I circled as a “must see” but I admit, when I saw the previews, I wasn’t impressed. First off, I’m not a Trekkie so let’s not get up in arms if I miss a minor detail here. No JJ Abrams, he was too busy doing a fantastic job with “Star Wars The Force Unleashed.” In the director’s chair for this installment is Justin Lin who is most noted for the “Fast and the Furious” films. Also, Simon Pegg (plays Scotty in the recent films) wrote this film. Gone are Kurtzman and Orci who penned the first 2. And believe me, you notice.
The film starts out with Kirk pondering his place in Starfleet and in life, same with Spock. Then, we get right into it as the Enterprise follows up on a distress call and away we go. Idris Elba plays the villain but you would never know as he’s layered in makeup. The film cruises till about the 2/3 point when we learn why Krall (Elba) has a bug up his ass with the Federation. At this point, I was holding in copious amounts of urine and I wasn’t completely focused but I’m a little fuzzy why Krall did what he was doing. It kind of felt like they forgot late in the film, “oh yeah, we need to hurry up and get a few more plot points in between the final action scenes.”
Speaking of action scenes, that’s what Justin Lin is known for in the FnF franchise. In this film, we don’t see anything close to Vin Diesel growl out monosyllabic phrases while his car does a 720 in between 2 high rise buildings. However, there’s a scene where Kirk is on a motorcycle that reminded me, “Yep, this makes sense because Lin is directing.” And if we can get away from playing, “Sabotage” in future films, I’d be happy with that. It worked in the first one just fine, no need to keep flogging that horse.
And there was a little buzz about Sulu coming out as gay in this installment. Calm down homophobes, it isn’t that bad. Just only when Kirk bends him over the captain’s chair and has his way with him while yelling out in Klingon. Just kidding.
I thought this film was fine. Definitely the weakest of the bunch but not bad. Would I drop 15 bucks on it? Maybe but don’t think you’re getting as good of a film as the first 2. I felt there were moments like it was a mad libs where they had “insert character trait/emotion here”to check the boxes. I didn’t get much of an apathy or any other emotion for Elba’s villain. The final action sequence felt too much like the ending of the other 2 films.
I give it a 6 out of 10.
Kevin Gootee 