Review of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) by Kenneth L — 26 May 2010

You gotta love the Star Trek franchise. There's just something so sincerely optimistic about Star Trek; the movies seem to have this real faith that someday in the future, we will be able to go where no man has gone before and accomplish amazing feats.

From what I have seen of the franchise (this one, the two before it, and the J. J. Abrams version), the movies are consistently good-hearted and joyful. This spirit of optimism is really well expressed in the Star Trek theme music.

This particular Star Trek movie is pretty good, better than the first, and not quite as good as II or the Abrams one. Kirk and Spock have a pretty intense bromance going on that is funny but also kind of touching.

William Shatner seems to have toned down his hamminess for this one. DeForest Kelley gets a bit more to do in this one than before. George Takei, James Doohan, and Walter Koenig all get decent parts. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), though, feels left out and gets virtually nothing to do.

Christopher Lloyd is just barely recognizable under his Klingon makeup, but gives a fine performance, especially given that half of his lines are in Klingon. The big problem with the film is that just not that much seems to happen.

I don't know where the time went, but I feel like it could have been about 20 minutes shorter and still have all the same plot events. The movie is also fairly predictable, and only has a couple of real surprise moments, which feel like they were put in solely to be surprises.

The demise of Lloyd's villain is rather anticlimactic, and the movie ends on an unsatisfying note designed to get you to watch Star Trek IV. Leonard Nimoy proves that he's a capable director. I would recommend it if you like Wrath of Khan and want to know what happens right after it.