Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Director: Justin Lin

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Idris Elba

Have I Seen it Before: Once again. Unless it’s a brand-spanking new release, it’s a safe bet that I’ve seen a Star Trek film before.

Did I Like It: It’s almost like they finally took every complaint I had about the previous two films (more the second than the first) and incorporated them into a new film. This is that film.

Here’s a deep, dark secret about Star Trek, especially anything having to do with any version of Kirk and company, the original crew. Everyone says it is about lofty ideals and political parables. But really, truly, it is an adventure series. It works best when its an adventure story. 

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) goes back to the purest distillation of the franchise and presents Horatio Hornblower in space. Certainly, you get something like various episodes of the TV series, or both Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) that have deeper ideas, but those ideas are fully developed. This film’s predecessor, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), tries to reach for those lofty ideas, but half-bakes some kind of post 9/11 mush.

This film doesn’t have that problem. There’s a hint of a dissertation as to whether the Federation’s ideals of peace and unity, but here are the elements that keep the film together. There’s a bad guy who wants to do bad things. The only people that can stop them are the crew of the USS Enterprise. they will have a hard time repelling this threat.

That’s all you need, really, and this film doesn’t need anything more than the basics. Those lofty ideals should really be reserved for Nicholas Meyer, honestly. This film is far more engagingly Star Trek than any of the previous Abrams-involved ones. It also has the unusual distinction of not having any scenes take place on or in orbit of Earth (Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) is the only other entry in the film series to do this), and that is far more true to the reality of Star Trek than the alternative.

At the time of this writing, it is entirely possible that the “Kelvin” series will stay a trilogy. Time will tell, but as a finale, it works in remarkably subtle ways. The Beastie Boys are back to my undying chagrin, but at least here it has some kind of story-based reason for existing in Roddenberry’s future, and even kind-of-sort-of makes its original existence in Star Trek (2009) as set-up for this eventual payoff. The angry young men that Kirk (Pine) and Spock (Quinto) were when we first met them have settled into the people they are supposed to be, and are no longer bound by the prime universe that preceded them. If they do return, then it would be nice to see them just inhabit the characters, now that the development is complete.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Bruce Greenwood, and that great latin lover, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Have I Seen it Before: Since 1994, it is reasonable to assume that I’ve been there for every Star Trek film on opening weekend.

Did I Like It: Folks, I really want to enjoy every Star Trek film. I want to. And yet…

It’s difficult to try and criticize this film without taking a deep dive into my long-standing Trek fandom…

So here I go criticizing from that perspective:

The opening scene is such a complete and total violation of the Prime Directive in every way, shape and form. How Kirk (Pine) is not arrested and sent to a prison colony for life twenty minutes into this movie is beyond me.

They keep referring to the transwarp beaming equation that Scotty (Simon Pegg) “developed” in the original film. That was supposed to allow people to beam onto a ship traveling away from you at warp speed. It has nothing to do with beaming people to a planet in a completely different sector of space many light years away. Also, not for nothing, the effective development of that technology negates the need for starships at all, and pretty much nullifies the entire concept of Star Trek. Not great, all things considered.

The fact that Leonard Nimoy, in his final performance as Spock Prime, doesn’t argue with McCoy (Karl Urban) is a missed opportunity that will never present itself again.

Maybe one can try to make an argument that the film has a certain energy that someone who isn’t steeped in the lore of this franchise might find entertaining, but in my best attempt to try and see this film from that perspective, I just can’t make it happen. This movie has been unleashed on the public for nearly six years. Can anyone explain to me what it is actually about, beyond a tame studio-watered down semi-parable for the post 9/11 world? 

Even the stakes are much lower here. In Star Trek (2009), Nero threatens the entirety of planet Earth, after proving that he is a real threat by destroying the planet Vulcan. Here, Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) has a plan. I’m still not entirely sure what it is, but at the end of it, a large ship crashes into San Francisco. 

Let’s talk about Khan, and for that matter, Khan, while we’re at it. The casting of the whitest man in all of time and space to succeed a decidedly non-white hispanic actor playing a man of Indian decent is a little… Well, it’s certainly something. The error is retconned by a four-part comic series published after the movie was released, but it doesn’t bode well for the film itself if you have to have the ancillary material to make heads or tails out of it. Also, the reversal of roles merely for a rehash of the far, far superior Wrath of Khan (1982) is lame in extreme.

Also, his blood wasn’t some sort of fountain of youth. Just saying.

It’s flimsy, and cheap in its writing, and that’s pretty impressive when you could say that about a lot of the big budget action far hoisted upon us. I cannot help but think that Abrams was eyeing adventures in another galaxy, far, far away and didn’t have his eyes on the prize here, and it became clear that his various lieutenants don’t have his same skill.

For some reason I want to rate this film higher than the generally accepted worst films in the franchise (either Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) or Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), depending on your particular taste), but on this particular viewing I don’t think I can go light on it. This may be the worst Trek film…

Or it’s as bad as Nemesis, not worse. I think I’ll go with that much. Worse than Nemesis feels like a stretch. 

Star Trek (2009)

Director: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quntio, Zoe Saldana, and keeping the whole thing together, the late, great Leonard Nimoy

Have I Seen it Before: I saw it four times in the theater. 

Did I Like It: It may have launched some irritating things (including its own 2013 sequel), but it is hard to deny this film its charms, or, more importantly, the moments where it absolutely sings.

The last ten years or so should be a difficult time for action-adventure movies like those that make up the Star Trek series. They aren’t about anything, other than the thin connective tissue that will propel characters from explosion to explosion. So that this first attempt to relaunch the franchise after the petering out experience by Nemesis (2002) and the then most-recent series, Enterprise, does something incredibly smart. It presents the space opera as coming of age story. Sure, it’s not the loft ambition of a Horatio Hornblower story, or even a parable about Chernobyl in space, but telling the tale of James T. Kirk (Pine) and Spock (Quinto), Angry Young Men, is certainly a good starting out point for the film.

And it mostly works! There are things that serve to annoy. The lens flares are ubiquitous, but commentary about them has become far more irritating than the flares could ever have hoped to be. The decision to shot any utilitarian section of a starship in a brewery has never made sense to me. The Beastie Boy-laden scene where the spunky tween-who-would be Captain Kirk (Jimmy Bennett) faces off with Robocop and gravity remains one of the most irritating scenes in recent memory, compounded by the unassailable reality that it lifts right out of the movie. Not many people talk about how there’s some serious post-production jiggery pokery that leaves the bad guys waiting around for twenty-five years with nothing to do, and I will opt not to go into it much further here.

I could go on. Honestly, it should be a little bit harder to beat the Kobayashi Maru test, even if you have reprogrammed the simulator. But the parts that do work far outweigh the nitpicks. The film is cast perfectly, with the new cast bringing new energy to roles we already think we know. Karl Urban might (and I stress, might) have been more born to play the role than even Deforrest Kelley. The mini-tragedy at the beginning of the movie heralds the coming of Chris Hemsworth, undeniable movie star and latches the film to real emotions, even during those scenes and plot holes I can’t abide. 

And there is one moment, and one spark of performance, that makes this film—and, indeed, the entire “Kelvin” series—work on the whole. It is the first moment in which Kirk encounters Spock Prime (Nimoy). The elder Spock takes one look at this brash upstart and says, haunted by everything we as the audience has already seen. “James T. Kirk…I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” In that moment, I believe Pine is Kirk, Quinto is Spock, and on and on. It’s a moment the film absolutely depends on, and Nimoy nails it with such subtlety, that it’s hard not to marvel at the moment with every repeat viewing.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Director: Bob Perischetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

Cast: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Bryan Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, John Mulaney, Nicolas Cage, Liev Schreiber

Have I Seen it Before: Have I ever even seen anything like it? Let’s put it this way: I normally only list only four cast members. Here, as there are so many other great ones doing great work here, limiting things to only four felt somehow unfair.

Did I Like It: God, yes.

Why, of why, didn’t Lucasfilm just let Lord and Miller make the Solo movie they wanted to make? They have an absolutely unbroken track record of turning idiotic ideas (The Lego Movie (2014), 21 Jump Street (2012), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)) into insanely watchable movies. They’re involvement here is only tangential, but they manage to turn a pretty good idea into a surprising, wondrous epic that is certainly in the running for best Spider-Man movie ever, best animated movie of the year, and is hands down the best animated feature film featuring superheroes of all time. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)—a film I dearly love and the previous king of the category—has been dethroned.

Now, transdimensional fiestas, and meta commentary on the sprawling history of a seminal character is more than enough to attract my interest. The animation style, fusing together traditional cel, Pixar-level 3D, and a frenetic appreciation for an era of comic books just ever-so-slightly past both serves the story at every moment, and manages to be entirely new, all at the same time. I tend to stay away from 3d presentations, but when I see this movie again—and I surely will—I may deign to take on an extra pair of glasses for the experience.

That every character—even the supporting ones—has an equal claim to pathos and hilarity is truly remarkable. The cast—as I mentioned above—delivers on this seemingly impossible task. 

Shameik Moore imbues Miles Morales, the film’s newest Spider-Man with such likable charisma, that anyone whole complains about a black Spider-Man is going to find new depths of foolishness in their complaints. All of the clever flash of the movie would fail to come together if Morales’ story and Moore’s performance weren’t among the best parts of a film already filled with best parts.

Among the others, Chris Pine is a perfect amalgam of ever cinematic Spider-Man to date, emphasis on the perfect, while Jake Johnson is a far more schlubby (and dare I say attainable) version of the same. The arc of Johnson’s Parker and his relationship with Morales gives hope to this thirty-something who realizes Spider-men keep getting younger, while I do the opposite. John Mulaney becomes the cartoon character we never knew he was destined to be. While I’m loathe to lump together and put near the end Hailee Steinfeld and Kimiko Glenn as Spider-Gwen and Peni Parker, theirs were the versions of the character I was least familiar with, and the ones I’m most eager to read more about as soon as possible. Even Nicolas Cage comes to play first and get paid second. It’s been a long time, Nic! It almost made me forget about Left Behind (2014), and actually gets me to warm up to the idea of Mandy. 

Go see this movie. It comes with my highest recommendation.