Review of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) by Darren C — 02 Jun 2012

I know that it's been a while since my last review of the Star Trek movies but I plan on continuing to review all of the movies. As I have said in the last review of the movies and as I will say in all of the Star Trek movies, I don't know a thing about the Star Trek universe and I am not really a Star Trek fan so this is all from a point of view of a non-Trekkie. We're now on the fourth Star Trek where we find the crew facing criminal charges and on the way there, they learn that there's a space probe threatening to destroy Earth and so to save it, the crew go back to the eighties to try and find a way to save it. For the first time since watching the series, I felt like I didn't need to Google a lot of the stuff to understand it, it was very friendly to non-Trekkies and the movie itself was actually good because it makes you want to watch the other movies and it was entertaining. The performances from Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner were good and the characters were entertaining enough but the thing that bothered me a little was the story.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home isn't a bad story but the plot was pretty cheesy. Granted, this is from the eighties and there were some pretty cheesy movies back then but it just felt very cheesy even for the earlier Star Treks. I know that this may sound a little bit like a criticism but it's not intended in that way. In fact, it works. The whole 'future people go back into the past to our present day' plot has been done before in many movies and it works in this movie too. I can't really speak for Star Trek fans and tell you if they'd like this movie because, in my experience of knowing Trek fans, they're pretty fussy but for the non-Trek fans, this is quite enjoyable and it has a message about extinction. Don't make any animal extinct, they could save the world from destruction one day!

The story, the characters and the plot were all good. There were a few problems but they were minor and it would not spoil the enjoyment of the movie. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is definitely one of my favourites because, except for the fact that it was enjoyable, it was easy for people who are not fans of the series to understand. To fully understand the movie, you'd have to watch the previous one but overall, this was a great movie and is definitely the first Star Trek movie that I could probably watch again if it was on television.