Star Trek Beyond, in my view, is the best Trek film from the rebooted series so far.

It maintains a pretty good balance of character-driven scenes and thrilling action sequences, while wittily and subtly paying tribute to the original series.

Three years into their five-year mission, the Enterprise is attacked and the crew is forced to take refuge on an uncharted planet.They discover the attack was directed by Krall, an alien dictator searching for an ancient artifact to use as a part of a bioweapon.  With the majority of the crew held in Krall’s camp, Kirk, Spock and their small army must overthrow Krall before he can complete his bioweapon.

The story has a charming, Star Treky feel to it. Beyond is basically a new episode from the original series, with more development and budget.

There’re no intergalactic wars or gigantic end-of-the-universe-battles, just a simple, small conflict between two fractions on a planet.

The restricted setting allows more room for character development, giving the new crew some fantastic scenes.

Kirk is smarter and more mature. He feels more of a captain and less of a student, which makes him easier to invest in.

Spock also receives some good adjustments. His relationship with Uhura gets less attention in the plot, letting Spock embark on a different, more personal arc.

This isn’t a spoiler but it is revealed that Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has died. Throughout the film Spock worries about his species’ mortality. He considers leaving Starfleet to continue Ambassador Spock’s work on New Vulcan.

Unlike Star Trek Into Darkness, which just shoehorned iconic quotes from The Wrath of Khan, the referencing is handled a lot better. Very much like The Force Awakens, the references are used as conversational mentions of the film’s universe, races, worlds and technology.

The only problem with the film is the villain. I thought Krall was a bit dull. He has a good motive but he isn’t fleshed out enough to be more interesting or three-dimensional.

Despite the bland villain however Star Trek Beyond transcends the first two films in terms of story, character and referencing. It’s a clever and fun journey and I recommend it.

I give Star Trek Beyond a strong 8 out of 10.

UPDATE: I’ve got another video up, this one’s got Captain Sweden in it. I thought it was about time I did something with that character. You can see the new video right here and you see original here.