Movie Review: ****Star Trek Beyond (2016)

This is a movie for which you have to be prepared for lots of action.  It really keeps moving.  There is one little twist at the end that I don't want to give up, but the Enterprise faces an unstoppable enemy, bee like ships that all work together as one.  After destroying the Enterprise, they try to capture all the people, but the show never tells why or reveals how many actually die in the attack.  This is because the bee vessels were gathering everyone up and collecting them.  They all end up on the same planet, Spock, and Scottie and Dr. Bones all crashing into the planet, with the goal of rescuing their crew.  Scottie meets a local, at least local now as she has previously shipwrecked on the planet, her father was killed in an escape attempt, and she has been surviving in an Enterprise space ship which has been cloaked.  She is one pretty tough woman, but still scared to go back to the base.
Spock is determined not only to rescue the crew, but specifically Uhura, his girl friend.
This movie is a fast and exciting ride, which doesn't give up until the end.  I didn't take any fantastic theme from the movie, other than sometimes you can get lost in space.  This movie was mostly geared toward entertainment rather than philosophizing.
This movie starred: Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Commander Spock, Karl Urban as Dr. Bones, Zoe Saldana as Lieutenant Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty and Idris Elba as our bad guy, Kroll.  He was some fantastic bad guy.  Scotty, or rather Simon Pegg helped write the script.

Movie Review: ****^ Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

This movie is very good, and brings Khan back to the Star Trek series.  Khan saved Star Trek (as an enterprise) at one point after the first movie did not do very well.  Khan brought some excitement to Star Trek, and it kept going from there.
This movie works because the enemy is within, and catches everyone off guard.  Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) is just as evil as the original Khan played by Ricardo Montalban.  However he is retaliating, which is what sets him off to become and enemy of The Federation.  From Wrath of Khan, the are a genetically engineered race, who were put into a frozen state.  Khan was found, and unfrozen.  The rest of the crew were put into torpedoes to be shot at the Klignons.  The battle follows the first Khan, loosely, with a few twists.  Perhaps the hype of Caleb was a bit overblown, but I can see why he said best ever.  This movie is very emotional, and yes Spock is emotional in his way.  It is also just as miraculous as the original series.  Chris Pine stars as Kirk, and Zachary Quinto as Spock.
Highly recommended.

Movie Review: ****Star Trek (2009)

This is Star Trek takes an aside, because some Romulon (Eric Bana) makes Black Holes which allow him to go back through time, which he does to take vengeance on The Federation.  In the future, Spock attempted to save the Romulon World, and failed.  Major changes to history are the death of Captain James T. Kirk's father on the day of his birth; and the destruction of the Vulcan world, along with Spock's mother.  Spock (Zachary Quinto) is able to save only about 10,000 of the billion or so souls of Vulcan.  The other plot change is that Kirk (Chris Pine) is a junior officer, who is kicked off the ship for his brash ways.  Spock, who was first officer becomes the Captain as previous Captain is taken captive by Nero, the crazy Romulon.  A plot twist is the elder Spock showing up and coaching Captain Kirk, his oldest and truest friend.  Present day Spock and Captain have not been friends, but they need to if they are going to save Earth from the crazy Romulon.