Star Trek Beyond Review - SPOILERS

All right, so, I want to spoil the living shit out of this movie, so I offer you a quick review of the movie for those who don't want to be spoiled:

Beyond is a fun Star Trek movie that has its flaws, but is the first movie in the Kelvin universe to succeed in feeling like a Trek episode. Funny and action-filled, Beyond is worth the price of admission despite a villain that is underdeveloped and too much shaky-cam.

For the spoiler review, click on "read more."

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

Star Trek Beyond succeeds as a Trek and summer movie because it knows what it is at its heart. Star Trek has always been about exploring the unknown, and watching the characters interact with each other. And this is a tough challenge to rise to. Years and years of television allow writers and actors to build relationships that make you want to root for/against their characters. We've had three movies to get to know Kirk and his crew, and this movie started to show us what the movies have been building toward. Beyond does suffer from a villain that is interesting, but rarely feels intimidating. He's also underdeveloped, and his motivations are barely mentioned.

So, what's the movie about?

The Plot

Kirk and crew are almost three years into their deep space mission. He offers a token of peace to some random alien race, but they say no. Kirk takes the token back, much like a kid takes his ball and goes home. Except Kirk is in a spaceship, and can't go home yet. So, not quite the same.

Kirk is doubting his desire to captain the Enterprise, and is hoping a stay at the Yorktown - a fantastic new space station designed by people who must have loved Mass Effect's Citadel - can give his mind and crew a much-needed rest. While there, Kirk receives an offer to be Vice Admiral of Yorktown, while Spock learns of his future self passing away. He decides it would be in his best interest to go to New Vulcan and become an ambassador, just like his future self.

Ruffles have ridges!

While there, a distressed ship pulls up to the Yorktown. An unknown alien claims her ship was attacked, and her people were in danger. She needs help, and of course the Enterprise and her crew are happy to help out.

From there, they fly into a nebula and then a swarm of massively angry space bees destroy the ship. Krall - the villain - makes his entrance and starts stealing the crew for what must be peaceful and benevolent reasons. Oh, and he wants that token of peace, which actually was an ancient weapon. Scotty and some of the bridge crew manage to escape as the ship splats onto the planet's surface, while Kirk hides said token.

Scotty meets a non-native with wonderful white hair named Jaylah. Jaylah - who has some technical expertise and happens to live on the USS Franklin, which disappeared over a hundred years ago - has seen Krall's evil ways firsthand. He uses some form of ancient technology to steal life from other creatures, and Jaylah lost her family to his technology.

Krall finds the token and - surprise! - it's a weapon of biblical space proportions! Kirk and his bridge crew save most of the other crewmembers and take off in the Franklin to chase after Krall, who has taken his space bees on a vacation trip to the Yorktown.

"Captain's Log, and do I look like I give two shits what day it is?" 

Turns out the space bees don't like music, and they get wiped out by the Beastie Boys' Sabotage, which was on an iPod on the Franklin.Yeah, that happened. Anyway, turns out Krall is actually the captain of the Franklin. The ship was lost in a wormhole and crashed into the planet we weren't given a name to. He slowly went insane, I guess, waiting for someone to come get him.

Krall survives the Beastie Boys mix tape and his ship gets into the Yorktown. Kirk and Krall have a fun fistfight for character's names with K in them, while fighting next to the weapon, all ready to blow. Anyway, Krall and the weapon get sucked into space while Kirk gets saved. Kirk decides he wants to stay on as captain, and Spock stays with the Enterprise. The movie ends as the new Enterprise gets built, and they leave for space again.

What Worked

• Spock and Bones. Fantastic pairing. Touching, funny, witty - they hit it on the head here. Overall, the acting was quite good. 
• Jaylah - I liked her. Tough, smart, and strong. 
• The pace. The movie flew, and rarely let itself slow down. 
• The special effects were top notch as expected. The unnamed planet was beautiful and alien. 

What didn't. 

• I wanted just another 5-10 minutes of the crew interacting. It seems like the decision was to fly from one action setpiece to another, which works okay, but left some characters underdeveloped. I suspect this is Justin Lin's doing, since his Fast and Furious movies are famous for doing this. 
• Krall/Captain Eddison. Yeah, he was interesting, but his fall into insanity is barely given a thought. I wanted more. 
• It felt like there was little at stake. This is a common problem in the Marvel movies as well. Even as the ship crashed around them, Kirk really should have been destroyed over losing what had to have been a good number of crew, and the ship he loved. Instead of giving Kirk a few minutes of sadness and anger, he just jumps up and says, "Well, let's find out what this whole thing is about lol."
• Shaky-cam. GOD DAMMIT HOLLYWOOD, STOP WITH THIS SHIT. After seeing Batman destroy a room with wide shots and smooth camera movement, the fights in this movie made my head hurt. 

Should you see it? 

You should if you like fun summer movies, and if you like Trek, you should too. Despite its flaws, it's a fun movie, and I hope it makes enough to warrant another movie or two. 

What about you? Have you seen it? Comment below!