Review of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) by Jon W — 08 May 2014

Good concept, but the film felt dull and lifeless. Developing a Vulcan character ruled by emotion instead of logic, Subok feels like an honorary human. The trio in Paradise City are also potentially interesting characters but are never explored.

That's how the movie feels, like one lifeless occurrence after another until it reaches a climax that isn't necessarily bad. Star Trek works best when it lives at the intersection between logic and philosophy.

The Enterprise is going through a void that may deposit them anywhere; The Garden of Eden, another universe, to death. As interesting a concept as this is, the movie unfortunately fails by committing an artistic sin and being incredibly boring and underdeveloped while also attempting to be funny (it's really not).

So many potentially good characters are introduced and forgotten, a concept of facing your fear to heal is never explored past just stating it, the action sequences are forgettable, and there really isn't anything at stake.

The villain is particularly un-villainous, showing the level of menace of yogurt and producing mild irritation from me instead of anything deeper. Of the six original movies (and the two new ones), this is definitely the worst.