Amazon.co.uk Review
Almost universally derided on its first release as the worst of the
Star Trek movies to date,
The Final Frontier might just have been the victim of bad press. Following in the wake of the massively successful fourth instalment
The Voyage Home didn't help matters (notoriously, even-numbered entries are better), nor did having novice director and shameless egomaniac William Shatner at the helm. But if the story, conceived and cowritten by Shatner, teeters dangerously on the verge of being corny, it redeems itself with enough thought-provoking scenes in the best tradition of the series, and a surprisingly original finale. Granted there are a few too many yawning plot holes along the way, and the general tone is over-earnest (despite some painfully slapstick comedy moments), but the interaction of the central trio (Kirk, Spock and McCoy) is often funny and genuinely insightful; while Laurence Luckinbill is a charismatic adversary as the renegade Vulcan Sybok. The rest of the cast scarcely get a look in, and the special effects betray serious budgetary restrictions, but with a standout score from Jerry Goldsmith and a meaty philosophical premise to play around with,
Star Trek V looks a lot more substantial in retrospect. Certainly it's no worse than either
Generations or
Insurrection, the next "odd-numbered" entries in the series. --
Mark Walker
Special Features
- Audio commentary by William Shatner and Liz Shatner
- Trivia track
- The Journey featurette (29 mins)
- 4 deleted scenes
- Herman Zimmerman: A Tribute
- Vintage interview with William Shatner
- That Klingon Couple
- A Green Future? Harve Bennett's pitch
- Make-up tests
- Pre-visualisation models
- Rockman In The Raw
- Production stills
- Storyboards
- Trailers
DVD Technical Information:
- Running Time: 102 minutes
- Region Code: 2
- Widescreen
See all Reviews