Star Trek Beyond & the Verrückt

Rosalie hated it but maybe not quite as much as she hated The Lobster. And for the most part, I agree with her. I’m talking about Star Trek Beyond. I’m an old science fiction fan and the tv Star Trek was a wonderful series, as were the first two movies. But this one, not so much. The technology involved in the Enterprise and the starbase colony was impressive, but then we have all the slam-bang hand-to-hand fighting between the good guys (the Enterprise crew) and the bad guys (Krall seems to be the only bad guy around but he’s bad enough), and it took on the too familiar look of all the action films out now, revered by the younger set, not so much by the older. Judo kicks and punches and spins and loud sounds of flesh striking flesh (Well, who knows what one might call what Krall and some of the other aliens are wearing on the outside?). One of the movie’s best features was Jaylah, a female alien who was cast out by Krall and who then built a home in the wreckage of the Franklin, a starship that was lost years and years ago when it did a nose-five onto the planet where Jaylah and Krall reside. Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) sported a snow-white face highlighted by three black streaks that made her head look like a piece of vanilla nougat. But, man, could she kick ass. It was comically funny but just a tad too silly for my taste. And way too silly for Rosalie’s taste. She may never again let me suggest which movie we should see.

A quick comment on the idiot parents who allowed (maybe even encouraged?) their ten-year-old son to ride on that awful water slide in Kansas (the Verrückt—“insane” in German). Just how important was that thrill to the parents or the boy? Ah well, as they said after the accident, he’s now in the arms of Christ. Idiots.