Movie: Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond:  Entertaining but . . .   The challenge inherent in franchise films is that it’s impossible not to compare the current episode with past tellings of the tale.  This is especially true for “Star Trek”, which has television roots going back fifty years to 1966.  This latest installment begins with Kirk (Chris Pine) and the crew of the Starship Enterprise departing on a rescue mission beyond the known territories.  The Enterprise crashes on a planet where most of the crew is captured.  The core group: Spock (Zachary Quinto), Bones (Karl Urban) and Scotty (Simon Pegg, who co-authored the script with Doug Jung), who of course are not captured, join Kirk in an effort to rescue the captured crew.  They then depart the planet on a quest to save the innocents living on a space station which is under attack by Krall (Idris Elba), the villain who caused the Enterprise to crash in the first place.  The only new, interesting character is Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), a crew member from a previous ship that had been brought down by Krall.  The two other “Star Trek” core group, Sulu (John Cho) and Chekov ( the late Anton Yelchin), play their roles with accents a bit too thick.  One nice touch to this story is that Spock and Uhuru fall into a relationship and, although their on screen chemistry works, the chemistry between Kirk and Spock is unfortunately missing.  Director Justin Lin keeps the story moving forward, however, if I hadn’t already established an emotional attachment with the main characters of this episode, the only character I would have cared about is Jaylah.  Krall is evil but, perhaps due to his costume, too bland.  Jaylah had her own science wonders but they are presented with no explanation as to how they worked.  If you enjoy the “Star Trek” stories, you will be entertained.  However, if you don’t already have a bit of the Trekky spirit in you, this 120 minute film will not awaken the Force.