SPOILERS DOWN THE PATH; THE DISCUSSION BELOW WILL NOT BE COMPREHENSIVE WITHOUT IT.
TREAD CAREFULLY. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.
With a comedy tone as starter, reality hits you on full warp that this is not another J. J. Abrams' Star Trek film. Star Trek Beyond will be a prime example in showing how a motion picture's vision changes, when the director seat is taken away from the original person, and the screenwriters pass their jobs to others.
To credit, yes the premise is good. Expanding from the previous outings, the Starfleet troopers have been out in space for closely 3 years already. When a decision is made to take a break from the respite of unknown due to rigors of staying outer space for a long time, what happens when the Enterprise; home to all the crew is shredded to pieces & members are dislodged far apart from each other in an uncharted planet?
Chris Pine returns as Captain James T. Kirk. He has aged. He is psychologically influenced due to long travels. He is not sure whether he wants to continue what he is doing now. There's a loss of energy in him, as it is with the film. The idea of bioweapon ship attack is something different than usual. Simon Pegg as Scotty is funny. He has a better chance to shine in this installment, maybe because he wrote the script. There is a nice nod to the actual crew of Star Trek. Makeup & hairstyling is praiseworthy although the designs seem generic and fake at times, signifying low creativity. Once you witness the antagonist's backstory, you can understand from where he's coming from. But his motivations are okay, nothing extraordinary. It's always about destroying the Federation right, what else? What else could possibly be new for screenwriters to think of, right?
Michael Giacchino's music is no longer impressive. It's typical & predictable; not sure what happened there. The actions are mundane due to lack of any tense or conflicts, spare for two; the fisticuff inside a distribution system chamber & multiple PX70 diversion. World designs, part nice, part artificial. Visual effects are obvious. And as expected, bunch of verbal expositions are just tossed at you for consumption.