With Fast & Furious franchise director Justin Lin at the helm, Star Trek Beyond delivers some high wattage space battles with a slight touch of humor.

Star Trek Beyond may give all you wanted from a Star Trek film — serious fighting scenes, strong characters and solid punchlines.

After directing two rebooted Star Trek movies, this time around JJ Abrams took the producer role and gave the director’s seat to Justin Lin, who injected his high-wattage Fast & Furious action signature into Star Trek Beyond.

The gripping action started within the first few minutes with the Starship Enterprise being decimated by a fleet of unidentified star ships.

In the fist-fighting department, Beyond gives us plenty. From a fight between the main villain’s henchman, Manas (played by Indonesian actor Joe Taslim beneath layers of prosthetics) and female warrior Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) to a final gravity-defying wrestle between the Enterprise captain, James Kirk (Chris Pine), and the ruthless alien leader, Krall (played brilliantly by Idris Elba).

Beyond catches up with Kirk and the crew as they enter the third year of the ship’s five-year mission to explore strange new worlds where no man has gone before. Kirk is in the doldrums and begins questioning whether his life will only be a series of space adventures. “Things have started to feel a little episodic,” he said.

Kirk avoids sharing his feelings with his best friend, the half-Vulcan Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto), who is dealing with his own personal matters.

Their episodic daily life in the Enterprise started to get interesting after they receive a distress call from a science team who was attacked in an unexplored nebula.

The Enterprise comes to the rescue only to discover that the distress call is a trap set up by a mysterious lizard-like alien named Krall, who recharges his power by literally sucking the life out of other human beings. Krall wants to get his hands on an artifact that Kirk and his crew have in their possession.

Backed by his strong army, Krall rips up the Enterprise, forcing Kirk and his crew to abandon ship.

Injured and stranded on an unknown planet, Kirk and the crew struggle to get a sense of what is happening. Things start to get better after Kirk and the crew meet Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), a native, technology-adept alien with a tragic back story.

This is when the drama and humor written by actor Simon Pegg and Doug Jung really shine.

At one point, the ever-pragmatic Spock laughs, not just a little snicker but a full-belly one. In the previous Star Trek, he cried.

On the watch: Captain James Kirk (Chris Pine, center) is surrounded by his crew in a scene from Star Trek Beyond.

The arguments between Spock and the cantankerous Doctor “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban) produce some genuinely hilarious moments. Pegg, an English actor-comedian, unquestionably has what it takes to perfectly deliver the punchlines in his reprised role as chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott.

While the previous installments were very Kirk and Spock-centric, Star Trek Beyond, based on the Star Trek series by Gene Roddenberry, spreads its focus to more characters. The audience will get to know more about the Enterprise crew, particularly Chekov (played by the late Anton Yelchin) and Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (John Cho), including a glimpse of his personal life as a gay man and father.

Boutella did an excellent job in embodying Jaylah’s female warrior persona. While Idris Elba showed a solid performance as Krall, the character appeared to be a one-note foe stuck on a repeated line: “Unity is not your strength, it’s your weakness.” Krall only began to look interesting in the final minutes of the movie when his origins are revealed.

This year marks the 50th year since the first episode of Gene Roddenberry’s sprawling sci-fi universe appeared on television. Star Trek Beyond proves to be a terrific anniversary celebration for the Star Trek franchise.

In the lead-up to the Beyond premier, many media outlets highlighted the portrayal of Sulu as a gay man and the sudden passing of Anton Yelchin. Beyond will be the last of reboot Star Trek installment to feature Yelchin’s character Chekov, as JJ Abrams confirm that the role will not be recast.

At home in Indonesia, attention is definitely directed toward the country’s action star, Joe Taslim, who appears in plenty of scenes in Beyond, not just the brief scenes enjoyed by his fellow Indonesian action stars in last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

All in all, Star Trek Beyond is a bold, entertaining space voyage with eye-popping visuals that is worth being watched in 3D.

— Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures
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Star Trek Beyond
(Paramount Pictures, 122 minutes)

Director: Justin Lin
Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin and Idris Elba