STAR TREK BEYOND

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The big thing that this movie is farthest away from (as its title promises) is authentic storytelling. All the fancy-schmancy sci-fi spectacle and charismatic actors in the film can’t make up for some of the clunkiest screenwriting in recent memory.

Like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces don’t fit, “Star Trek Beyond” jumps between giant action set pieces lacking in context, nuance, and expositional background.

The narrative is a sloppy mess.

I veer away from Hollywood films more and more these days. When I do come around to take its latest temperature I’m more disgusted than ever.

Critics and fanboys can blow all of the hot air they want about this film’s supposed connection to the original Gene Roddenberry television series, but boy, they are wrong.

A sad example arrives via the late Anton Yelchin’s underdeveloped role as Chekov. The essential Star Trek character is squandered beyond belief. He’s reduced to a few overheard, throwaway, one-liners.

Idris Elba is also terribly wasted in the villainous roll of Krall. By the time the movie gets around to Elba’s big scene, it’s too little too late. What a waste of awesome talent.

Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Sofia Boutella, and Anton Yelchin all give inspired performances that get shoved under the rug of a movie lacking a developed narrative arc.

With its five contributing scriptwriters, “Star Trek” feels exactly like the by-committee screenplay you’d expect from so many chefs in the kitchen.

Rated PG-13. 122 mins.

GOLDFINGER — CLASSIC FILM PICK

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It took until the third installment of the Ian Fleming-based James Bond spy movie franchise for its identity to crystallize.

Following on the successful heels of “Dr. No” (1962) and “From Russia with Love” (1963) — both directed by Terence Young, Sean Connery’s early mentor for the urbane leading role — “Goldfinger” marked a significant upgrade in production values that would make everything about the franchise iconic. Female characters would be sexier and more dangerous, yet also more likely to die.

“Goldfinger’s” introduction of Pussy Galore (played by Honor Blackman) sent a powerful signal. Exotic set pieces would be epic in scale. The series’ signature nuanced tone, straddling dualities such as dry humor and outrageous danger, would be more pronounced.

John Barry’s unforgettable theme, sung by the incomparable Shirley Bassey, created a longstanding tradition of James Bond theme songs becoming chart-topping hits.

Budgeted at more than the cost of the first two films combined, “Goldfinger” launched the ritual of beginning each subsequent Bond film with a stand-alone mission sequence for the fictional British MI6 agent, known by his code number 007, to show off his stuff.

Other customs followed. An assignment meeting with British Secret Service head M allows for the otherwise autonomous Mr. Bond to have his feathers clipped while being informed of his latest mission. A little office flirtation with M’s secretary Ms. Moneypenny segues into a meeting with resident gadget master Q, who gets Bond up to speed on the state-of-the-art devices that the audience can expect to see employed throughout the movie.

It’s not every spy that can arrive on an island in a wet suit, blow up a South American drug lab, strip down to a white tux, and seduce a villainess who must be sacrificed to save his own skin — all without breaking a sweat, as Bond does in “Goldfinger.”

Yet every man wants to be James Bond, and every woman wants to be with a guy as capable, confident, and handsome as Sean Connery. The Scottish actor made such an indelible impression in the role that most audiences still consider Connery’s portrayal to be the truest filmic embodiment of the James Bond character to command the big screen.

A pay dispute between Terrence Young and the franchise’s notoriously selfish producers (Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman) opened the door for French-born English director Guy Hamilton to helm “Goldfinger,” a story based on Ian Flemming’s seventh novel in his 16-story James Bond series.

007’s mission is to foil international gold smuggler Auric Goldfinger (‪Gert Fröbe‬). The treacherous villain uses a trafficking technique later employed by the real-life heroin smugglers represented in William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” (whereby illicit goods are stashed in the body of a large car).

Goldfinger’s plan to rob the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox arrives at Bond’s eavesdropping ear in an outrageous set piece of exposition wherein the German mastermind enlightens the heads of America’s regional Mafias before killing them via poison gas. The not-so-subtle nod to Hitler was not lost on audiences at the time.

“Goldfinger” set in stone the formula for what would become cinema’s longest running and most reliably entertaining franchise. Regardless of how many installments have come since, “Goldfinger” retains its reputation as the best of the bunch.

Rated PG. 110 mins.

THE THIN MAN— CLASSIC FILM PICK

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Long before Ian Fleming’s James Bond became cinema’s longest-running and most successful franchise, Dashiell Hammett’s Thin Man books laid their foundation with a “retired” private detective and his up-for-anything wife.

The couple’s wire-haired fox terrier Asta played a key role in fulfilling the debut series’ escapist atmosphere, which gave Depression-audiences [circa 1934] temporary relief from the harsh economic realities outside the theater door.

William Powell’s vibrant incarnation of Nick Charles is a sophisticated gentleman without a care in the world. Nick married into money. But rather than flout his luck he celebrates it and even shares it with those less fortunate — witness the Christmas Eve party he and his wife Nora throw in their fancy hotel suite while visiting New York City from their home base of San Francisco.

Nick passes out cocktails from a sliver tray to a group of “old friends” made up of characters you might see waiting for a job at the local union hall on in a police department line-up. Nick also keeps one foot permanently in the bottle. He’s a lush with panache.

Powell’s lyrical skill with dialogue matches his graceful physicality. He practically dances and sings his way through the entire movie.

Myrna Loy is at turns sultry, bubbly, and tomboyish as her character Mrs. Nora Charles is loyal. Together, the mutually imbibing husband-and-wife sleuthing team live a playful existence of matrimonial bliss. He lovingly calls her “sugar.” When they meet for drinks at the hotel bar, Nora asks how many drinks he’s had. Nick replies, “This will make six martinis.” Not to be five-upped, Nora orders five martinis to be lined up beside the one already in front of her. She pays the price with a hangover that lasts only long enough for the who-done-it parlor game plot to advance by degrees.

The beauty of “The Thin Man” [directed by W.S. Van Dyke] is that it welcomes the audience into an unencumbered marital relationship where a wealthy husband and wife play out their ideal personas of equal parts childish and adult characteristics. Their mutually assured friskiness has a calming and comic effect. Barbs of innuendo keep the humor spicy.

On Christmas morning Nick shoots out balloons hung on a tinsel covered tree with a popgun Nora gave him as his only gift — he gave her an expensive watch. She watches his boyish antics with calm disdain. The phony gunplay comes just hours after Nick protected Nora by punching her on the jaw to prevent her being hit by a bullet from an unwelcome intruder. Nick comments that he read he was “shot twice in the Tribune,” to which Nora replies, “I read you were shot five times in the tabloids.” Nick gleefully retorts, “He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.”

From the look of it you’d never guess that “The Thin Man” was produced as a low-budget B-movie because the chemistry between Myrna Loy and William Powell is so strong, and their performances so snappy. The movie received four Oscar nominations and inspired five sequels that are just as much fun. Interestingly, the “Thin Man” refers not to Nick Charles, but rather to an unseen murder victim never referenced in the films.

Not Rated. 99 mins.