1989 / 107 Minutes / PG
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

I wanted to like this movie. I really, really did. I popped it into my DVD Player and thought: it can’t possibly be as bad as everyone says. In fact, I bet it’s a diamond in the rough, a forgotten treasure, a film unfairly maligned because it follows on the coattails of a very successful, beloved and fun film.

Boy, was I wrong.

“Star Trek V” is not good…and yet, I can’t quite bring myself to hate it. It’s cheesy, it’s kinda lame, and the “WTF” factor is very, very high. But I still found myself entertained, somehow, throughout the film. At the absolute minimum, I can honestly say that I was never bored. I did scratch my head a lot, and there were many things I had to rewind and watch again because I couldn’t quite believe I saw what I actually saw, but I was never bored.

The film begins on a vast desert on a planet known as “The Planet of Galactic Peace” (I sense the title was given ironically. Of course it’s peaceful, nobody seems to live there.). A strange man emerges from this desert and begins winning over a cult following by bringing peace to people’s minds (maybe they knew he was coming when they christened the planet) like a hairier Jesus with pointy ears. However (in a move that is definitely not “What Jesus Would Do”) the Vulcan and his followers take a group of bored ambassadors hostage. His logic is that Starfleet will respond to this hostage crisis by sending a starship and, when they do, he can hijack it.

The crew of the Enterprise are on shore leave when they get the urgent call to intervene in this crisis so they cut short their singalong around the campfire (a scene that includes the most embarrassing version of “Row, Row Your Boat” ever committed to celluloid) and hustle across the galaxy to check things out. After a failed hostage rescue attempt involving horseback riding and exotic feather dancing (????, you know what, there aren’t enough question marks for me to use here) the prophetic Vulcan (who happens to be Spock’s never-before-mentioned half-brother) steals the Enterprise and uses it to search for…wait for it…God. (In my opinion, “Star Trek V: The Search for God” would have been a much better title.)

Perhaps you can already spot several problems with this plot. For one thing, it lacks a major villain. That is sort of refreshing, I’ll admit, and Laurence Luckinbill is quite good as Sybok, Vulcan prophet, religious goofball, and half-brother to Spock. He’s got an engaging presence that makes it easy to see why people would follow him on an admittedly crazy crusade. But his antics generate zero tension. Therefore the movie introduces yet another Klingon to stir things up. But this Klingon has none of the glower of Christopher Lloyd nor the class of Christopher Plummer. When he is introduced, he is blasting space junk from his Bird of Prey out of sheer boredom. He only decides to chase Kirk because it sounds like fun. This is not a fiendish antagonist. It’s kinda funny, sure, but it doesn’t generate an iota of tension.

In fact, that’s the main problem of this film: there are no stakes. Nothing is risked here. Hell, even within the universe of the film it doesn’t seem like anyone cares. Why else would Starfleet send a bug-ridden, malfunctioning starship like The Enterprise into this adventure if not because it’s the most expendable ship in the fleet, crewed by geriatrics and captained by a man who’s already been almost court-martialed twice. If The Enterprise explodes, I doubt anyone in Starfleet Command is going to lose any sleep over it. The ship gets stolen, but Sybok basically lets Kirk and the others do as they please anyway. Hell, he even lets Kirk lead the expedition once they get where they’re going! Again, this guy is interesting, but not much of a villain. His diabolical scheme is simply to make people happy and to find God! Intriguing, but the guy’s no Khan. And neither is Korrd, the dumbest Klingon in the galaxy. He looks like he’d rather be curled up in bed with a six pack of Hamms and a stripper.

This is easily the quirkiest “Trek” film ever (I haven’t seen all of the “Next Gen” flicks, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t nearly as bizarre as this one). It has Uhura doing an erotic fan dance, for God’s sakes. That’s just weird. And am I going crazy or are Uhura and Scotty dating in this film? She brings him dinner AND rubs his cheek! I mean, SOMETHING is going on there. Other strange, “WTF”-inspiring sights: a half-cat stripper, a drunken Klingon general, McCoy wearing an odd scarf thing (like he just stepped off the set of Match Game ‘76), and Spock administering the Vulcan Nerve Pinch to a horse. Even the Enterprise has its quirks: the transporter is on the fritz, the controls are sending up sparks, and the Captain’s Log is even broken…which sounded like more of a Viagra joke than I intended. None of this is precisely GOOD, but it does manage to keep the viewer awake.

William Shatner, notoriously, directed this film and I’m sure he was going for the sort of fun, breezy tone that Nimoy brought to “Voyage Home”. He definitely missed the mark, but I’m not sure it was entirely his fault. I have no problems with the rock-climbing and campfire shenanigans that open this film. In fact, it’s neat to see these characters enjoying a little rest and recreation for a change. But the rest of it is decidedly low rent. The sets are drab at best, ugly at worst. The plot sounds a lot more interesting than it really is. When Kirk, Sybok, McCoy and Spock actually MEET God at the end, it’s a pretty dull effect (and if you’ve already figured out that it isn’t actually God: Congratulations, you are breathing). The movie seems to be building toward a finale that it just doesn’t have the budget for. Instead of an extraordinary effects sequence involving Shatner fighting a supreme being, we have Shatner hiding among rocks while a big head zaps lighting at him. And how do you stop a god? Apparently you shoot one torpedo at it. Omnipotent being, my ass. Again, I’m not sure this is Shatner’s fault. This was the summer of 1989 and I’m almost positive that Paramount was giving its big movie money to Steven Spielberg (”Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”) instead of William Shatner. Not that I blame them. I think any rational person would have made the same choice. All I’m saying is that I don’t think the film’s anticlimax is necessarily Shatner’s fault.

The bored performances (aside from Luckinbill’s), tired pacing and cheesy dialogue, on the other hand, those probably ARE Shatner’s fault. The actors have been playing these characters for decades and it totally shows here. They are visibly going through the motions and Shatner wasn’t a good enough director (i.e. “enough of a prick”) to shake things up and motivate them to new heights. He also wasn’t good enough to turn a bad script into gold. This, again, isn’t entirely his fault (though, credit-wise, he did have a hand in the script) but a better director might have been able to stretch a limited budget further and at least compose interesting shots.

I can’t quite hate this movie, but I can’t excuse it either. It’s likable in its own shaggy, low-rent way, but it’s most definitely a turkey.

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