Review of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) by Jonathan B — 24 Jun 2014

Sadly, the fifth Star Trek film is a bit of a mess with some decidedly silly ideas and cheap effects. There's no real sense of peril or mystery and a few too many unexplained MacGuffins to ignore. Laurence Luckinbill is dreadful as the misguided Sybok, Spock's long-lost half brother.

He believes that he's found the planet where God lives and so hijacks the Enterprise to try to go and meet him. Much was made at the time of the release of the movie that God was probably the only entity with an ego bigger than Captain Kirk but quite what made Shatner think he was a suitable director for this is bewildering as he shows no flair.

For the most part, this really feels like they all just turned up and read the lines but there are one or two glimmers of chemistry of the team, notably in the camp fire chats in the Yosemite park where the genuine affection between the lead characters shines through.

I have to confess, I do also like the hugely improbable scene where Uhura distracts some space-baddies by performing a striptease fan-dance on a sand dune. I think it's an acknowledgement by the cast and the production crew that this movie really was never meant to be taken seriously.