Star Trek Beyond

I'm THIS close to giving it five stars, because it's not worse than Into Darkness. It has much more routine and confusing action, but at the same time it feels much more relaxed. A simple plot, which in an intimate and humorous introduction refers more to the poetics of the series, a well-used villain that reinforces Kirk's dilemma and the motif of emptiness related to discovering the infinite universe, crunchy dialogues (the most touching parts are during conversations), a solid pace which comes from the screenplay more so than from Lin's directing, which overuses the offset camera and hyper-kinetic shots (in 3D it's really not easy to navigate) a bit much. I was afraid of getting a no brainer, and instead I got vintage Star Trek. I won’t hesitate to sign up for another mission with this crew! (08/08/2016)

Perhaps the most elaborate script of the series, killed by the jockeying of the action races, where the routine waterfall of attractions is mostly spent sadly reminiscing about the times when two big destructive events were good enough and the rest was made up with fancy characters and casual humor. One witty line about stalking and a dozen fast and furious "copy & paste" shots for a hundred and twenty minutes. A clear aspirant for the Top 5 blockbuster shits of the year. (09/21/2016)

I'm not setting off into the unknown next time. I have no problem with the characters, the lines are pretty funny too, but the biggest letdown is the action. It lacked any kind of suspense and was quite confusing at times. Only the soundtrack got full stars from me; otherwise this was boring. 2 stars (09/10/2016)

Hit them with MP3s! This year’s first full-blooded blockbuster that kept its promises and remained true to the story. For this anniversary episode, Simon Pegg came up with a story that pays homage to plots from the old series and spiced it up with a few nice (although rather predictable) twists and excellent ideas. The absence of Abrams is obvious. The fatefulness disappeared, but Justin Lin is much better at action scenes (even if an entrance on a motorbike is pretty weird) and provides a slightly different visual feeling. In terms of acting, this is a classic, but the unusual pairing up (Spock and McCoy) is very refreshing, cool lines are abundant. Idris makes a great villain, but you only get to like him toward the end. Sofia Boutella wasn’t as important as I had thought she would be, but Pegg just plain enjoys himself. I thought it good that they didn’t save the Earth, that they meddled in the past, and I liked the doubting sub-story line. I enjoyed it. (08/16/2016)

As a space opera, it's more in the department of Mark Stone than "intended" Star Trek (only introductory ten minutes are in line with the latter one), the pace is furious as in the blockbuster movie and it's packed with action, but the action scenes are way too confusing, and so paradoxically the movie works best as a one-liner comedy, which is not taken seriously, not at all. And it helps a lot. (08/16/2016)