Star Trek Beyond, on the other hand, finally sees Kirk and his crew head off into the final frontier. The emphasis on fast-pacing and action from the previous two movies is still front-and-centre, but Beyond still feels more like an episode of the Original Series writ large than either of JJ Abrams’ earlier entries. You may have read about the behind-the-scenes changing of the guard on Beyond; Simon Pegg and Doug Jung took over as screenwriters, while Roberto Orci (who co-wrote Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness) is now a producer. With JJ Abrams decamping to other pastures (a small franchise called Star Wars), Fast & Furious director Justin Lin stepped into the breach, and despite all the changes, Beyond’s opening third feels perfectly assured. We’re taken on a tour of the Enterprise, where the rigours of space travel are taking their toll; in a passing nod to John Carpenter’s Dark Star, exploration is revealed to be monotonous and frustrating as well as exhilarating. Kirk even comments that the days out in space begin to roll into one, like years spent stuck in a submarine. Not that things remain too quiet for long. Sent on a mission to the other side of a nebula to help a stricken alien space ship, the crew find themselves scattered across an uncharted planet and far beyond the Federation’s reach. There, a ruthless space fascist named Krall (Idris Elba, almost unrecognisable beneath facial prosthetics akin to the ones worn by Louis Gosset Jr in Enemy Mine) aims to get hold of an ancient and deadly weapon. Scotty (Simon Pegg) meets an alien warrior named Jaylah (Kingsman‘s Sofia Boutella), who’s initially wary of the crew but eventually becomes a useful ally. Where Beyond falters is in the villain department. Krall looks and sounds imposing, but Elba’s given little chance to project his charisma full all those prosthetics while the plot gives him little to do other than make the occasional speech or idle threat. His evil scheme and lust for a powerful super-weapon also feel rote, while his army of rank-and-file goons run about in anonymous-looking space armour that could have come from a Dead Space videogame. When it comes to action – and boy, there’s a lot of action – Lin’s direction sometimes borders on the fussy. Many shots – particularly aboard the enterprise near the beginning – are nicely framed and lit, yet Lin occasionally has a tendency to go wild with his swooping cameras and digital edits, where one shot flows into another so the camera becomes like a drone, flying in and around the action and pitching and shaking. One early action scene feels overlong and chaotic enough to induce air sickness. Beyond seems so keen to be all things to all movie-goers that it winds up feeling a little frivolous. Die-hard Trek fans will likely be heartened that the movie includes more exploration, problem-solving and a general sense of what I can only call Trekkiness than the previous two movies. Anyone who disliked the less-than-scientific sci-fi elements of Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, however – the red matter, Tribble experimentation and so on – probably won’t be impressed by some of Beyond’s goofier bits. As our esteemed editor Simon Brew pointed out, one plot point is remarkably similar to one in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! Nevertheless, Beyond moves at a fast pace, and younger viewers will probably enjoy the humour and the light good-naturedness of it all. There’s the nagging sensation that there isn’t much in Star Trek Beyond that will stick in the mind for more than a day after viewing it; the sense of occasion and drama in, say, The Wrath Of Khan, The Search For Spock or First Contact are conspicuously absent. But once again, it’s the quality of the characters and the actors who inhabit them that make this a worthy evening’s entertainment. Coupled with Michael Giacchino’s uplifting score, the crew of the Enterprise remain as fun to spend time with as they ever were. Star Trek Beyond is out in UK cinemas on the 22nd July.