Star Trek Beyond Review: 8 Ups And 2 Downs

Like a feature-length episode of The Original Series.

By Alex Leadbeater /

Rating: ★★★★

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Here’s one for you. Before the press screening of Star Trek Beyond, me and a group of other critics were chatting Star Wars and discussing everything that happened at last week’s Celebration event; how it was ran, the quality of the reveals, and the future of the galaxy far, far away, getting hyped for movies that are years out. Before Star Trek we were talking Star Wars.

That’s how poor the marketing for this film has been – the trailers have been incredibly underwhelming and Paramount have almost looked like they’ve wanted to hide the film, so the excitement has been oddly mooted for the studio's big summer release.

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But let me tell you, once the movie was over, all we could talk about was Trek.

Beyond’s great, just a cut below J.J. Abrams 2009 reboot, and will appeal to just about anyone. If you’ve been brought in by Justin Lin’s Fast & Furious, you’ll have plenty of action to enjoy, and if you’re a proper Trekkie who’s not a big fan of the Kelvin timeline, you'll be pleased to discover a lot of major complaints about themes and narrative have been addressed.

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Here's eight ups and only two downs from Star Trek Beyond.