"Principal photography began in Vancouver on June 25, 2015. The film premiered in Sydney on July 7, 2016 and was released in the United States on July 22, 2016. Beyond marks one of the final film appearances of Yelchin, who died in a car accident a month before its scheduled release. The film is dedicated to the memory of Yelchin as well as fellow Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, who died during pre-production. The film received positive reviews from critics and has grossed over $22 million worldwide." (wiki)
Now that you know the general specifics I'll tell you a bit about the story, my favorite scenes, and what I thought of the film.
It begins with Captain Kirk giving a gift as an offering of peace from this alien race to another. The aliens don't take too kindly to the gift because it was formerly a weapon of war. So he ends up not giving it to them. Then, while in space they get attacked by these bad guys-more aliens. Turns out that this baddie named Krall (played by Idris Elba) is after the weapon to use it to destroy starfleet-I think? We don't really know what his true intentions are. All we find out in the end is that he's all about war and killing people. He thinks that struggle and conflict is what makes us strong. And that starfleet has made peace with their enemies. That kind of stuff. He's kind of a generic bad guy in that sense. However, he was still a cold-blooded murderer.
Anyways, so they crashland on the planet that the bad guys are on and they're all captured and have to find each other. Here's where my favorite scene comes in. Scotty finds himself in trouble with some random dudes trying to fight him. And then this kick ass alien chick comes to his rescue. She had this technology where there were three images of her and they were all fighting the bad guys. She doesn't use it again during the film but she gives the tech to Kirk, who then uses it to save his crew while riding a motorcycle. Pretty fun stuff.
So the alien chick helps them out and it turns out she lives in an old starfleet ship. They come up with a plan, save the crew, leave the planet, and then have to stop Krall from using the weapon on the starfleet base that supposedly had millions of people on it. The weapon causes these black (insects, nanobots, not sure) to come flying out from space and it destroys everything in sight. That's the gist of it. Plain and simple. But effective.
I really liked when Idris Elba's regular face came up on screen. Most of the movie he's wearing this goofy alien mask playing the role of the villain Krall. When I found out it was him playing Krall I thought it was way cool. But as my dad said,"whats the point of having Idris Elba if all you're going to do is put a fucking mask on him?" He's one of my favorite black actors because he does a lot of the science fiction stuff that I enjoy but also because he has a commanding presence as a black actor. He could join the pantheon of great black actors someday soon. He probably already is at this point. He's one of the best actors around-nevermind the fact that he's black.
The movie was good but I felt like it was a little hyped up. Like most blockbusters once you've seen the trailer you get a sense of the entire film. Nowadays all the trailers are like that. In terms of comparing this one to the other reboots I think the other two reboots are better-especially Into Darkness. Like I said this movie was good but it didn't have any defining or interesting moments per se. Just regular Treky kind of stuff. Which is cool because the movie is for the fans.
In addition, I liked how the movie was dedicated to Spock (Leonard Nimoy) who died during pre-production and Anton Yelchin (Chekov) who died in a car crash at just 27 years old. The fans will miss them and they were remarkable actors. After the credits there was a little tribute to them. Very touching.
If you're into Star Trek then this is the movie for you. If you like science fiction its also for you. And if you just want a good family movie to see this is also good. I'd give it like a 7 out of 10, maybe 7.5 if I was feeling extra generous. It's not a bad movie but it does feel kind of long and droning at times. Most importantly it was fun. Thanks for reading. Live long and prosper.
No comments:
Post a Comment