Well, that was painful.

I made the mistake of going to see Star Trek Beyond a few days ago. My brain still hurts.

Yes, a couple of movie mini-reviews. Since the movies are still in theaters, please be aware that spoilers lurk below.

Don’t think I–a Star Trek fan since the mid-seventies–am dissing the reboot for being a reboot. I liked the first reboot film and enjoyed the second one despite its problems.

No, my objection to Star Trek Beyond has nothing to do with its place in the canon. Pure and simple, it just didn’t work dramatically.

I’m not even talking about the extended sequences in which shaky-cam was combined with dark rooms and loud music in a futile attempt to build tension*.

* Seriously, folks, that doesn’t work. It’s never worked. Why do you keep trying? And in this case, those sequences were so long and unproductive, I kept expecting somebody onscreen to stop, look around, and say “You know? This is stupid. Can’t we just turn on a damn light?”

What I’m talking about are the plethora of plot threads that lead nowhere, the logical gaps, and the abuse of coincidence.

Consider, for example, the first scene of the movie. Kirk is trying to broker a peace treaty between a couple of races of aliens, at least one of which obviously has no interest in peace. OK, nice idea for a movie. Lots of room for action and thoughtful discussion, with a goal that emphasizes the Federation’s peaceful intentions.

What happens? Kirk’s efforts come across as hugely half-assed and the negotiation fails within a couple of minutes. End of scene, neither of the contesting races appears in the film again, and to top it off, instead of returning the artifact that was at the center of the peace proposal to its owners, Kirk confiscates it for the Federation! And then he compounds the offense by keeping it on the Enterprise instead of turning it over to whichever archival organization is supposed to hold onto the damn thing. (Hint: starships exploring the unknown are not safe places to keep unique, possibly dangerous, objects.)

If the writers–and IMDB lists five of them, not counting the obligatory credit to Gene Roddenberry–couldn’t think of a way to use those aliens later in the film, why even bother to include them? Just to get the artifact into Kirk’s hands and give him a chance to demonstrate how burned out he is?

Fine, then. Skip the aliens, let the Enterprise find the artifact in open space, and give Kirk the chance to bitch about how bored he is with scooping up relics of vanished civilizations.

I could go on–if you’re heading into unknown space where your detectors don’t work well and where rocks are bouncing off of your hull, why don’t you put your shields up, rather than waiting until the hostile force appears and starts shooting at you? If the villain has weapons that can overpower the Federation’s newest, most powerful ship, why does he need the Federation’s “advanced technology” to conquer them?–but it would be too depressing.

My advice: accept that the whole movie is just as bad as the opening, skip it, and go see Sausage Party instead.

No, I’m not joking. Yes, Sausage Party is rude, crude, and juvenile. It’s also funny, beginning to end, and the writing is, within the limits of the movie’s universe, consistent and coherent.

OK, I exaggerate a little. The last scene is an uncomfortably tacked-on epilogue that’s either a sign of a unnecessary sequel or a failed attempt to parody unnecessary sequelitis. Even within it’s context, the script overuses the F-word. And the film uses the obnoxious “the ugly guy can only find happiness with the ugly girl” trope.

But despite those failings, the story works on a “gang of misfits sets out to save the world” level, as a parody of that genre, and as a loose framework to support a collection of jokes.

And ideas don’t get dropped. Recurring jokes not only recur, but in at least one case a character indulges in meta-humor, commenting on one of the major running jokes. AliensJokes introduced early in the film are brought back in new forms later on.

Despite what some reviews have suggested, Sausage Party isn’t all that deep, philosophically-speaking. But it’s an enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half, unlike Star Trek Beyond, which simply steals two hours of your life and refuses to give them back.