Star Trek Beyond -- A Review

Star Trek! 

Let me just start this review with what they did right.

James Tiberius Kirk played by Chris Pine -- a little preachy, a lot earnest -- check.

Spock, Zachary Quinto -- quite attractive, appropriately serious, just a dash of delightful naivete, maybe a shade too much emotion but then he's romantically involved in this film -- I'll give him a Yes!

Uniforms -- also a Yes! A bit Michael Jackson if he'd ever worn denim and I did question those chain-suspendery things. Looked too much like really big, beer can pop tops. But hey, I'm into repurposing as much as anybody.

Makeup -- Excellent. The new girl especially.



Sofia Boutella plays Jaylah, a brash, competent, beautiful alien who has the coolest special effects in the film. She does this hologram-multiplication trick that is spectacular.

  And the bad guy, Idris Elba as Krall. I like the little LEDs along his ridges.

The opening scene gets a Yes! Captain Kirk is presenting what he thinks is a precious symbol of peace, a gift to the gargoyle-ish Teenaxi from their arch enemies the Fenopians. It's a typical Kirk scene. It reminded both my husband and me of our bad cat Kocka.

(For those of you who don't know about Kocka, he's a fluffy grey cat who's more than a little prickly. I have scars.)

And the space station Yorktown is bright and beautiful which is exactly how I imagine the future to be.

I've been a dedicated Star Trek fan since Gene Roddenberry took us on that first five-year mission of the Star Ship Enterprise into Space, the final frontier to explore new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. (Can't you hear the music welling in the background?)

That was in 1966. The shows were filled with humor and new ideas and people and creatures who didn't look like everybody else on TV.

The wit and wisdom has been replaced by shock and awe. Where we used to have characters with dialogue, they give us explosions and the tinkling of broken glass. So, okay, I like 3D. I like XD. I like flashing lights and loud noises. I mean I've been to a Jefferson Starship concert where I could hold my hands against my chest and FEEL the music. My ears rang for days.

But Good Grief! Enough is enough. And the celebration of modern movie technological marvels should not replace wit and wisdom. I mean the best lines were from Scotty, played by Simon Pegg -- not surprisingly one of the screen writers.

I love science fiction. I write science fiction. Check out Murder on Ceres.

But this is the last Star Trek movie I'll spend my time on. I actually fell asleep watching it. How could it be so boring with all that noise and bother?

Maybe I have entered my curmudgeon-hood. Now "Get off my lawn!"