The third entry in the Star Trek reboot successfully melds new director Justin Lin’s strong action packed style with the franchise’s altruistic values, to make for a sci-fi action thriller with much spirit under its phaser blasting exterior.

Gene Roddenberry very much created Star Trek to be a vehicle with which he could share his vision of a mankind at its most unified. Where Star Wars had a theological bent in its depiction of a powerful, unseen force that holds the balance between good and evil, Star Trek is about how the power of the human spirit and the unlimited imagination of the human mind has created a unified species that ventured into the never reaches of the universe in the spirit of exploration and friendship.

The enduring symbol of this vision is the United Federation of Planets, which is represented by Star Fleet whose many ships venture the universe in the spirit of exploration and peaceful interaction. One of its main successes is the USS Enterprise, led by Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine). After a 3-year stint of mildly eventful deep space trekking, a clearly unmotivated Kirk is tested when he and his crew – among them Vulcan first officer Spock (Zachary Quinto), chief medical officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), and communications officer Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) – are lured into a trap by Krall (Idris Elba) a vengeful alien with a bone to pick against the federation.

Under the watch of new director Justin Lin (known for his work on the Fast and Furious franchise), there is much in the way of “wowza!” action sequences that up the ante on an already quite good sci-fi action series, and more than matches an overcrowded marketplace of comic book movie/high concept genre movies (The Avengers, Star Wars) that have quality in style and in substance.

That last part is significant, since it’s not enough these days to simply present wiz-bang visuals without some depth to the proceedings. Star Trek thankfully has the lead in such things, with the preach of Roddenberry felt throughout this 13th film in the Star Trek series, as Star Fleet itself is the target of a villain whose sole purpose is to destroy what took years upon years of work build: progress.

Storytelling wise this represents a key factor that separates the great genre films from the mediocre, and that is the stakes at play in a battle between good (no matter how flawed) and evil (no matter how created).

Lin does a great job in presenting and delivering those stakes. Combined with his handling of some terrific sci-fi action sequences, and Star Trek Beyond lives up to its expectation of a blockbuster genre movie done right.