Star Trek Beyond Review: 8 Ups And 2 Downs

3. It Actually Has A Three Act Structure

Now this one shouldn’t be all that big a deal, but 2016 has brought us so many movies where the traditional narrative structure is ignored. You know the ones - the second act is a rush of disjointed scenes and the big finale kicks in randomly as you strain to know why anyone’s doing anything and character development is a dirty word.

Beyond has a clearly defined three-act structure that almost perfectly maps to all those basic set-up, confrontation resolution graphs you see, and because of that is a much more well rounded and enjoyable film than its contemporaries. I could tell you exactly where to put the ad breaks if this was a real episode.

I can't overstate how impressive this is. Of course Pegg would be able to make something that pleases Star Trek fans – he is a massive Trekkie, no matter what he says about geek culture – but that’s he’s penned a big summer film that can actually be called a film promises even more great things.

The pacing isn't totally perfect, but again that’s something for downs.