July 28th in Fairfield, CA. I will just come out and say it. I did not care much for this film. The film received great scores on Rotten Tomatoes and I understand that this is now an action franchise (as noted by the choice of director, Justin Lin). We are not going to see the science fiction film with some action from the past. That's fine. The powers that be want to milk the franchise for all its worth. It's the Hollywood way. Put in as much action as possible for younger viewers then throw in some nostalgia to suck in the older fans of series past. This is the 3rd film since the 2009 reboot and each film has gotten steadily worse.
The thing is, I never got a feeling that Kirk and pals were ever in any danger of not getting the job done. Kirk and Spock do not have the same rapport in the reboot either. Their friendship was forced upon them and us. The convoluted plot deals with both Kirk and Spock contemplating leaving the Enterprise until a distress signal calls the Enterprise back into action with the standard, it's "the only ship in the quadrant" cliche. The distress signal turns out to be a trap, the Enterprise is destroyed and the crew marooned on an unknown planet. Despite being split up, they manage to come up with a plan that involves a motorcycle (because why wouldn't it), Scottie fixing stuff with no explanation, repairing a two hundred year old starship to escape the planet and a hot female alien.
When they first meet, Kirk looks her over and totally thinks about having sex with her Given.
Then of course there are the evil aliens led by Krall. They seem to have access to great technology that allows them to monitor Starfleet transmissions and supply exposition. Oh, the two hundred year old starship that the Enterprise crew escapes in, turns out it's the ship that brought Krall and the evil aliens to the planet. See, it's the USS Franklin that went missing somehow the crew survived and has been luring ships there in hopes of finding the missing piece to an ancient weapon that happens to be in Kirk's possession in the comedic opening scene. Spoiler, the evil aliens turned out to the the crew of the Franklin and they've been turned into lizards (no explanation) but stay youthful due to a device (never shown) that can suck the life out of people (never shown, no explanation). It turns out they're really pissed at the Federation for not rescuing them. This all leads to the final battle on board the new Starfleet space mall that Kirk manages to save from the biological weapon at the very last second. Given.
The film is fast paced but the story and plot definitely take a back seat to the action. Lin abandons the sci-fi aspect of the film to go straight into hand to hand combat (thankfully the universe has a universal knowledge of kung-fu) and motorcycle stunts. Simon Pegg and five other people are credited with writing this picture. That usually means that the studio put in a lot of input and there were potentially a few other uncredited writers. It's very possible that the film had a good script to being with but it kept getting changed. The film was released on July 22nd and has grossed over $146 million domestically and $86 million world wide against a $185 million budget through August 19th. Not bad numbers but certainly good enough for a sequel. Perhaps the next installment can improve.
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