Review: Star Trek Beyond lacks the old magic

With a plot that could have been ripped straight from the original series, Star Trek Beyond has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, it feels like it's been made to appeal to a series of focus groups, writes Jason Di Rosso.

In Star Trek Beyond, Captain Kirk and his crew suffer a disaster like no other. The USS Enterprise is literally destroyed; rendered un-flyable by swarming alien robots, which tear apart the spaceship's fuselage like skin on a baked fish.

Kirk and the others manage to crash on a remote planet, beyond reach of Starfleet command, only to come up against a formidable villain named Krall (Idris Elba) with a brutal revenge plan.

It all kicks off when the Enterprise responds to a fake SOS call, delivered in person by a desperate alien whose vessel has become stranded. The bait and switch set-up could easily have been plucked from the original TV series, which was one big Cold War metaphor about humanist optimism versus the fear of the unknown.

But in Star Trek Beyond the duplicitous stranger is soon sidelined for some very contemporary navel gazing. It develops into a film about Kirk's mid-life crisis. He is reeling from the loss of his father, the annihilation of his ship and the passing of his youth—so it's not strange to see him on a motorbike like a sci-fi Steve McQueen.

This soul-searching journey is thought-bubble psychology at best, but director Justin Lin, taking the reins from JJ Abrams after the first two films in this new series, honed his shorthand storytelling technique in the Fast and Furious movies, and like that franchise's star Vin Diesel, Chris Pine brings enough nuance to make it work.

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It's a pity the script, written by Doug Jung and Simon Pegg (who once again plays Scotty like he's doing an impersonation at a party) is so cluttered with dull jokes and indifferent subplotting.

The film feels like it's aiming to please too many carefully researched audience clusters, which in turn muddles the rhythm—a problem that even the Beastie Boys's punk-rap anthem ‘Sabotage', unleashed over explosions and strafing lasers, can't fix.

I don't want to suggest the film completely fails to entertain. But in the current Hollywood era, post-Star Wars reboot, Star Trek Beyond needed to reach beyond its core audience. It probably won't.

Rusted on fans might enjoy it, but they will also see an opportunity missed. It's frustrating, because Star Trek Beyond offers a glimpse of the old magic.