The Trek And The Furious..."Star Trek Beyond"

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

PG-13

Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Sofia Boutella, John Cho, Anton Yelchin,

Directed by Justin Lin

The Story:

The crew of the Enterprise lands on an alien planet where their latest enemy (Elba) vows to destroy the Federation. With help from an alien (Boutella) and the Beastie Boys, perhaps Kirk (Pine) and his crew can save the galaxy.

Again.

So at this point, you either love (or at least tolerate) the rebooted franchise, or you hate it.

I'm not sure there's a middle ground.

I've enjoyed both the original series and the reboot for what they are: entertainment.

I enjoyed this installment of the series more than Into Darkness, mostly because I wish they would create new storylines for this crew versus rehashing old storylines.

Though this plot seems vaguely reminiscent of some previously seen episode, or movie...

maybe GalaxyQuest?

:)

Justin Lin moves from the Fast & Furious franchise to take over the Trek franchise, at least for one film.

If he does stick around, expect The Rock to show up in another sequel, soon, but that's about the time the quality of the franchise gets even better.

My biggest complaints for the film:

Karl Urban is woefully underused, as usual, and is still the best character the franchise has.

Star Trek: Beyond.  Star Trek-Beyond.

It's killing me to not have some type of punctuation in the movie title.

Otherwise, I need to know Star Trek Beyond...What?

What have they gone beyond?!?

;)

Final Grade: B-

A Sequel Nobody Asked For ... "Hitman: Agent 47"

Hitman: Agent 47

Rated R

Starring Rupert Friend, Hannah Ware, Zachary Quinto

Directed by Aleksander Bach

The Story:

Agent 47 (Friend) is trying to track down Katia (Ware) as she may have the genetic secret to continue the Agent experiment that the government (Quinto)  wants to restart to create an army of unstoppable assassins.

A long dormant sequel to the 2007 that I honestly didn't think was that great either.

:)

I've never played the video game that the story is based on, but I'm pretty sure that most assassins/hitmen try to keep a low profile instead of wanting to be the center of attention. That seems to be the main complaint that I see online when checking information on this film.

It starts off interesting enough with a game of cat and mouse between 47 and the government on which entity is trying to get Katia and why.

Then, once all of the ulterior motives of each side are known, it becomes standard action procedure from that point on.

Much like the reboot of the Transporter series, the star has less charisma than the predecessor of the series, but at least Friend gives it his best.

Plus, he's supposed to not have emotions, so I guess he's doing his best. ;)

Utterly forgettable by the time the credits role, this one seems like you'll have a better time playing the game than watching the movie.

Final Grade: C-

Blockbuster Weekend Part One: "Star Trek: Into Darkness"

To boldly go where we've already gone before...

For the first time!

The Story:

Kirk (Chris Pine) and the rest of his crew are in trouble for not following standard protocol.  Kirk is removed from his captaincy, just as a Star Fleet officer (Benedict Cumberbatch) goes rogue, causing a terrorist attack.  Kirk demands to hunt this traitor to the far reaches of the galaxy and is reinstated as the Enterprise's commander.  He reassembles his crew and prepares to bring vengeance to the villain.  Ah, but not everything is as it seems, and there are still some twists coming for the members of the Enterprise.

I'm sure everyone has seen this film by now that wanted to, so I won't spoil anything else.

As for me? 

I enjoyed this film.

I've seen/heard all the negativity, but come on folks, it's just a movie.

Spoken like a true non-Trekkie.

Yes, I grew up watching reruns of Star Trek in syndication, but otherwise, never bothered with most of the movies or the various television series that followed.

I've had no problems with the reboot/relaunch of an alternate universe Star Trek.

It was the smartest thing they could've done.

If you want to keep the franchise going into the 21st Century, why not reboot everything?  And they did it in such a clever way, it seemed that you could have the best of both worlds.  Everything that had come before was still there... and now a new crew with some old names was being given their chance to shine.

And they took to their parts really well.

Zachary Quinto continues to grow nicely into his role as Spock, but for me the scene stealer is Karl Urban as Bones McCoy.  He's not around a lot, which is a shame, but everytime he delivered his cranky lines, I laughed.

The guy fills the role perfectly.  I hope to see more of him the next go round.

Hopefully, and assuming there is a next film, the storyline might be original, and concentrate on the main portion of the crew.

Let's see how this 5 year journey works out for the new crew.

I'm game for a return if they are.

Final Grade: B+

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I'd watch it again, and wouldn't mind adding it to the collection with the first one.  Making 2 Star Trek movies in my library as the sum total  of my Trekkiness.