Director: William Shatner
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Laurence Luckinbill
Year: 1989
This has been a roller coaster ride for sure, rewatching the original Strek Trek films, a series of failures and successes that makes perfect sense, in retrospect, given the ridiculousness of the show but the way that sometimes we just loved it anyway. This latest installment, Final Frontier, is a crash back to Earth after the success of Voyage Home, a return to the goofy, episodic, blundering past and not a look toward what sci-fi could become in the future, a real blunder from any angle.
Once again it’s time for the Enterprise to jump into action and head to the rescue, this time after three intergalactic delegates are taken hostage by a madman who claims to have a master plan to solve the riddles of the world, or some such nonsense. Only, the rescue turns into a trap, and the Enterprise soon becomes the vehicle for a maniac on a desperate gamble. The crew will have to put their heads together to outwit, outplay, and outlast the loony toon’s scheme if they want to survive.
William Shatner directed this one, and apparently he’s as bad a director as he is an actor, because this is probably the worst that Star Trek is able to get. I can’t say I hate it, these stories will always be special to me, but I can say that I’ve given this film many more stars than it deserves. It’s moronic, it’s senseless, it’s terribly acted and written and produced, and, thinking back, there’s not a single part I can point to and claim as a piece that is worth savoring in an otherwise stinking pile of cosmic crap.
My rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆