Star Trek V - The Final Frontier!

Star Trek V The Final Frontier is the worst of these classic Star Trek movies. I'm glad William Shatner got to direct a movie, but sadly this ain't a good one. The major reason is that the search for God which is the central mission of this movie is just too plain on the nose. One might argue that all stories are more or less searches for evidence of the divine, an order to things and setting that order right. But to actually just go and look for the diety is a bit obvious. 

All our friends from the bridge of the Enterprise are back in a movie which sees the gang and an ill-fitted ship sent on a mission to the "Planet of Peace", a lone sentinel of what is possible where Humans, Romulans, and Klingons all hold some sway. It's an impoverished land and ripe for a messiah of sorts. What they get is what Bones calls a "passionate Vulcan". He turns out to be much more than that and is in fact Spock's actual half-brother named Sybok. He hijacks the Enterprise with surprising ease and off they hop across the galactic barrier a third time. (The movie seems to forget the Enterprise crossed this barrier twice in the regular series.) They find "God" but he ain't what he seems at all. 

There is a lot to bicker about in this mess of a movie. It seems to be operating on the smallest budget yet for one of these big screen events and feels as much like a big time Roger Corman effort than a true big studio effort. The acting seems a bit too perfunctory and the characters are too easily fit together. The story doesn't create the tension its supposed to and by the time we find God we're checking our watches. 

The crew of the Enterprise are also showing their ages. It's been ten years since they began making these movies and over twenty since the beginning of the legendary television series. We've watched these characters (and actors) grow older and it's beginning to show. Much comment is made about age, and that's fine, but Uhuru's fan dance was ill advised, as were most of the fighting the others engaged in at times. We need either younger action heroes or a director who can hide the rigors of age. 

This is a terrible movie, but that's on the Star Trek movie scale, so it's not without merits. There are some great moments of humor, such as Spock's unexpected arrival near the peak of El Capitan. Still I rate this one number six out of the six movies made the original crew. It's a Star Trek movie and that's not nothing, but it's a feeble one. We had become spoiled by the time this one arrived. But things get better. 

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