Star Trek Beyond reviews: what critics are saying about Justin Lin's latest

Are you blasting off with the crew in Star Trek Beyond? Or maybe you’re thinking about tossing back a Stoli with Edina and Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie? EW wants you to make good choices at the movies this weekend, so use our weekly Critical Mass guide to sift your way through the week’s crowded slate of new releases.

Check out what the critics are saying about Star Trek Beyond, Ice Age: Collision Course, Lights Out, and more, below.

Star Trek Beyond

Opens July 22.

EW’s Chris Nashawaty says:

I don’t want to sound too nit-picky and churlish. But the Trekverse is something that really means something to people. For them, Beyondis a fine movie, it’s just not a very good Star Trek movie. After all, as summer releases have gotten more and more and sensational and trivial, the Trek franchise could always be counted on to serve up some smarts along with its sci-fi action beats. With Beyond, it feels like just another summer tentpole with not enough going on underneath the tent. C+

Read the full EW review.

Rotten Tomatoes: 84%

Metacritic: 70

Ice Age: Collision Course

Opens July 22.

EW’s Devan Coggan says:

It’s been 14 years since we first met Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo), and Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Denis Leary) in the original Ice Age. We’re now on our fifth—yes, fifth—installment in the computer-generated series, and with Ice Age: Collision Course, the novelty is starting to thaw. C-

Read the full EW review.

Rotten Tomatoes: 13%

Metacritic: 33

Lights Out

Opens July 22.

EW’s Christian Holub says:

Unfortunately, the movie’s ending does not do this storyline justice. Suffice it to say that the mental health aspect of the story is not treated with respect, but rather as a simple plot device, to be used and discarded like so many shattered lightbulbs. In a culture that already doesn’t do well by victims of mental illness, it’s disappointing, and takes a lot of wind from Lights Out’s sails. It’s easy to not want to think hard about horror movies, to just let them wash over you like the cathartic experiences they are. But this movie purposely inspires viewers to think about serious topics, and then disregards the consequences of doing so, undermining the whole enterprise. The final physical sensation is not terror or relief, but disgust. B-

Read the full EW review.

Rotten Tomatoes: 77%

Metacritic: 57

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

EW’s Leah Greenblatt says:

Ultimately though, it’s all secondary to Saunders and Lumley’s riotous chemistry together. It’s that, and their unhinged abandon in the roles, that keep the movie from descending into a tired Zoolander 2boogaloo. Are they a danger to themselves and others? Probably. Greedy, shallow, pill-popping lunatics? Absolutely. But they’re also, as Edie wisely points out more than once, “bloody good fun.” B

Read the full EW review.

Rotten Tomatoes: 65%

Metacritic: 58

The Secret Life of Pets

Now playing.

EW’s Chris Nashawaty says:

Pets has a great premise, but it’s more busy than clever. Sylvester and Tweety packed more anarchy and wit into a six-minute Looney Tunes short than Renaud and Cheney manage in an hour and a half. Like a dog that endlessly chases its tail in circles, Pets is amusing for a while, then it just tires itself out. B–

Read the full EW review.

Rotten Tomatoes: 74%

Metacritic: 61

Ghostbusters

Now playing.

So why does Ghostbusters feel so restrained? For starters, it’s too slavish when it nods to the original (although its throw-back cameos are fun), and too flailing and flat when it strays from it (Feig and co-writer Katie Dippold introduce a ghost-unleashing villain, then don’t know what to do with him). Even the spectral f/x are oddly shlocky (seeing it in 3-D is pointless aside from one comin’-at-ya slime gag). McCarthy, of course, gets off some lunatic one-liners; McKinnon, the group’s loose cannon, can crack you up just by widening her wildcard eyes; Jones mixes her signature bluster with an air of gung-ho joy; and Wiig’s timing is as Swiss-precise as ever (that is, when she’s not being saddled as the film’s straight-woman). Even Chris Hemsworth, as the Ghostbusters’ dim, beefcake receptionist, is funny — for a while. But with a cast as daring and quick as this one, Ghostbusters is too mild and plays it too safe. Somewhere, I bet, there’s an R-rated director’s cut of the movie where these women really let it rip. I want to see that movie. C+

Read the full EW review.

Rotten Tomatoes: 73%

Metacritic: 60

The Legend of Tarzan

Now playing.

EW’s Leah Greenblatt says:

And how is Skarsgård? All sad eyes and fiberglass abs, he hardly speaks; there’s more dialogue implied by his deltoids than the scant mutterings the script allows him. But he does look fantastic, and the equally pretty Robbie works hard to bring some feminist nerve to her handcuffed-damsel role. Though the film was shot almost entirely on a London soundstage, it rarely misses a chance to pan a sweeping shot across lush forests and glistening waterfalls and amber waves of Congolese grain; there’s a whole lot of post-production magic here—especially in the Noah’s Ark of exotic animals that stand by ready to heed Tarzan’s beck and call, like eager extras on the set of Madagascar. The audience will eventually get more than one bellowing dose of that trademark yodel, plus multiple scenes of gymnastic vine-swinging. You just wish—after two solid but oddly joyless hours—that Legend strained less to hit its marks, and swung a little more. B–

Read the full EW review.

Rotten Tomatoes: 36%

Metacritic: 44

Finding Dory

Now playing.

EW’s Chris Nashawaty says:

A lot of people who loved 2003’s Finding Nemo will pay to see this new follow-up and walk out feeling like they got their money’s worth. But it’s not Toy Story, Inside Out or even Nemo. What it is is a perfectly enjoyable family film that’s comforting, familiar, and a bit slight, like one of those serviceable Lion King spin-offs that Disney used to ship straight to DVD back in the ‘90s. B

Read the full EW review.

Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

Metacritic: 77

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Now playing.

EW’s Leah Greenblatt says:

A better title for Dates, penned by the same team behind Neighbors, might be Wedding Smashers; there aren’t many slapstick or scatological places the script won’t go, and sometimes its frenzied lunacy just face-plants. But Efron and Devine are an endearingly loony duo, and as much as Plaza and Kendrick never quite sell their vixen shtick, the supporting cast is wickedly stacked. It’s like riding a roller coaster fueled by Red Bull and grain alcohol: kind of gross but pretty fun, too. B

Read the full EW review

Rotten Tomatoes: 39%

Metacritic: 51