After Into Darkness, Trek lost Abrams to Wars. Simon Pegg stepped up as a screenwriter with Doug Jung to try and get the Kelvin timeline back on track. The studio also decided to try out an action director, Justin Lin, who had success with the Fast and the Furious franchise.
I have already reviewed this, and one of my early criticisms was that the film is a bit slow going at the open. But after repeat viewings, I found that I really am not sure what I would do to speed things up.
After a fun little bit that sets up the film’s macguffin, the film focuses on where the characters are at. They pick up about half way through their five year mission, which finds Kirk feeling lost and unsure. In a clever bit of dialog, he comments that their mission has begun to feel “episodic”. Spock receives word of the passing of his future self (as Nimoy had passed away by this point) and questions whether he should stay with Starfleet or focus on the survival of the Vulcan race.
But after a mysterious pilot arrives at the space station where the Enterprise is docked, the Enterprise and her crew head to help the pilot’s disabled ship on the other side of a nebula. After they are attacked and the Enterprise is destroyed (the second time in this timeline!) Kirk and the team find themselves trapped on a planet with aggressive aliens bent on getting the piece of a weapon that the Enterprise had.
Beyond is pretty much a 180 degree turn from Into Darkness. It is fun, Elba plays a solid villain with a twist. Sophia Boutella is a highly entertaining character named Jaylah who is befriended by Scotty and Kirk. There is some solid character stuff with McCoy and Spock.
This is an action packed film that I find myself enjoying more each time I watch it. It makes me wish a follow-up in the Kelvin timeline were a lock instead of so uncertain. Of the timeline, I have really enjoyed two of the films, so I am definitely open to more.
In some vague near future, slightly more advanced than where we are now in a society that is collapsing in on itself, two brothers are trying to complete a heist. Wounded, they seek the Hotel Artemis. It is a private hospital created specifically for the criminal element. It is run by the Nurse and her assistant Everest (he is fixit man, security and policy reminder). If you do not have membership, you cannot get in.
Everybody wants a shared Universe these days. Granted, this is not an entirely new concept. And Universal used to cross over their monsters all the time. Dracula Untold was supposed to kick off the “Dark Universe” and then got “removed from Canon” and this latest incarnation of the Mummy was the new starting point.
Based on the graphic novel the Coldest City is a spy thriller set days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Lorraine Broughton is a highly skilled British spy on a mission to collect a dossier that could expose countless deep undercover spies. The problem is, determining who she can trust. Her contact in East Berlin, David Percival, has “gone native” in the punk scene. He is working to get a Russian nicknamed Spyglass to freedom in exchange for the information.
In the third film since J.J. Abrams rebooted the Star Trek Universe, we get an original story. And really? It is quite a bit of fun. It begins a bit shaky with attempts to give us brief character moments that are not entirely effective. It is nice to see McCoy taking a bigger role then the last film, and more of a focus on the friendship of he and Jim. And hey, they are actually in the midst of their five year mission of exploration! The previous two films were set before that.
Tripping Through Gateways 