Continuing on with my Star Trek reviews is probably the least liked in the original series. Seems that William Shatner was jealous of Leonard Nimoy directing parts 3 and 4 so he decided to direct one himself. I still remember when this film came out. It was 1989, the year of Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Licence to Kill and a few other blockbusters. I had an issue of Starlog magazine which had posters of all these movies and I remember pulling out the Star Trek V poster and giving it to my older sister's friend, who taped it to her bedroom door.
Star Trek V begins with Kirk, Spock and Bones having a leisurely camping trip away from the troubles of outer space. After teaching Spock "Row Row Row Your Boat", the Enterprise stops by to pick them up for an emergency voyage. It seems that a Klingon, Romulan and Federation leader have been kidnapped on Planet Nimbus III and the Enterprise stops in to save them. It turns out to be a trap set by Spock's half brother Sybok in order to hijack a ship to travel to a mysterious planet Sha Ka Ree to find...well, you'll have to watch it to see why. Oh yeah, there's also a Klingon ship hunting the Enterprise to get revenge on Kirk for killing their leader in part 3.
Star Trek V was a surprising treat for me. I expected a silly sequel but was actually really impressed with pretty much everything about this film. I thought it was actually better than parts 3 and 4. The story reminded me a lot of another one of my favorites The Black Hole (see my review) with its themes about exploring the unexplored. Shatner's direction was competent and actually seemed pretty accomplished to me. The characters were all interesting and I just really enjoyed the film.
RATING: 5/5
Nice Blog sir, I admire your tolerance for Shatner, though I do not envy it. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteYou know Seth, I made sure and paid close attention to the direction of this movie and I was really impressed with Shatner's work. There were some really neat shots (camera looking through the rungs of ladders, opening mountain climbing, etc).
ReplyDelete