STAR TREK BEYOND – The 13th Star Trek film – remember the odd-numbered ones are the good ones does that all change here?
Nutshell – The third movie in the rebooted series. The crew set off from the best spaceport in the Universe to help a missing crippled ship in a nebula hence out of contact. They come under attack from a big bad guy who has been planning bigger dirty deeds from afar which soon become apparent and whilst he sets off to destroy said spaceport and all human kind, our heroes are separated, enslaved or worse on a desolate planet that looks like a quarry in Surrey (Actually Vancouver).
Time – 122 mins; Certificate – 12A.
Tagline – None. Let’s face it you know what you are going to get by now after 50 years and are either in or out.
THE GAY UK FACTOR – Chris Pine and Idris Elba in mano et mano wrestling and fighting action as to who gets to live or in our universe loser gets done in the ass by the winner as in Kink.com’s wrestling videos online.
Cast – Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban with all the regulars plus Idris Elba and Sofia Betella and a bunch or red-shirt cannon fodder.
Key Player – Simon Pegg has now also taken on writing duties so the humour is upped substantially and it works. Of course he still plays Engineer Scotty, superbly too, and has quietly gone from BBC TV sitcom land to possibly our biggest movie star with this franchise plus two others with the Mission Impossible and Ice Age films plus his own starring comedies like Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and Paul, where does he find the time – Nick Frost who?
Budget – $185 Million, It’s positive reception will mean that it will turn out to be a very profitable little number especially in a Summer of underachievers yes Ghostbusters and Independence Day 2 we are looking at you.
Best Bit – 0.31mins; The first time the bad guys attack we get a very long, tense and sustained action sequence with real threat as the Starship Enterprise gets destroyed piece by piece before your very eyes….or does it?
Worst Bit – 1.28 mins; When Kirk goes all ‘The Great Escape’ on a vintage motorbike he finds in space….yes we know! Many critics say this is a great action movie but not a Star Trek film, judge for yourselves of course but this sequence would fit much better in Fast and Furious 8: Vin Diesel in a space quarry.
Little Secret -Writer Simon Pegg and director Justin Lin made the decision of making Sulu gay as a nod to original actor George Takei, who has since become a prominent LGBT rights activist. After production on the film was completed and a month before the film’s release, Anton Yelchin (Chekov) was killed in a freak car accident. During the end credits, there is a caption “For Anton”.
Movie Mistake – As the Enterprise gets hacked to pieces and split in two it seems incongruous that the lights, air, gravity seem unaffected. Then the ship starts to flip upside down but still the crew are running along floors and ceilings with gay abandon. Newton’s law of gravity for christsake!
Further Viewing – Well you have twelve others to go at for starters our fave is number 4 The Voyage Home followed by First Contact; Stargate, Aliens, Battlestar Galactica and anything from that galaxy far away and a long long time ago.
Any Good – Well yeah, the rebooted formula is well sorted now and the cast fit their parts perfectly. The original story is done and there is no attempts at cameos from Trek characters of the past just a straight forward adventure movie. Like a TV episode three times as long and with 50 times the budget. One of those rare Trek films that would appeal outside of the home fan-base. Number 14 please.
Rating – 34/100 (34th out of the last 100 films reviewed with 1 being Gay UK filmatic heaven and 100 being a dud).
