4 out of 5

Director: William Shatner

While the budget woes undeniably affect the scope and visual impact of the film’s climax (not to mention being an obvious step down from the previous few films for even flight sequences), ‘Final Frontier’ actually scores on a lot of aspects – the characterization is incredibly tight and the series’ floating theme of aging is well wrapped into the story, effectively using the plot to develop the concept.  Certainly some things come too easily and some aren’t quite explained, but it’s interesting the whole way through on a strict story level – something that II – IV didn’t achieve (III relied on II, and II and IV are action based).  A Vulcan – Spock’s half-brother – named Sybok, takes three diplomats of different races captive at the ‘Paradise’ outpost in order to purposefully wrangle a starship of enough durability to be tasked to put down his uprising.  As has been a hallmark of these setups, the Enterprise and Kirk are the only qualified things near enough, so they go to Paradise and discover Sybok to be more zealot than tyrannical, turning people to his side by, assumedly, using some Vulcan mind-ness to help them accept their pain.  Things go wonky, and Sybok, Kirk and crew and the Enterprise, are off on Sybok’s questionable quest “through the barrier” to seek out ultimate knowledge via God.  It’s a pretty bold concept for a mainstream flick, based on a pitch by Shatner, as is handled (setting aside visual limitations) surprisingly well, not being preachy or too excising of various faiths while also staying true to the feel of exploration at the core of most sci fi.  Despite the razzies, Shatner’s direction is well thought out – his compositions are pretty impressive and the pacing of his camera for both action and drama helps to transition between the light-hearted and more serious elements.  Though Laurence Luckinbill as Skybox has almost too vaguely defined a roleto fully fill his character’s shoes, when he is allowed a specific pursuit in any given scene, its believable that, given time, he could swing someone to his side.  Alas, there’s no time for that time on screen, and so things get shuttled along in a way that doesn’t really establish the feeling of a threat – it almost always seems like Kirk’s choice to go along with Sybok, no coercion necessary.  I appreciate the bad rap the film gets, as its easy to get distracted by comparing this to the fun fourth entry and noting poor effects, or lack of a definable villain like in II or III, but watched in sequence with the series I found it rather rich and rewarding despite its flaws.