Rating: ***
Director: Nicholas Meyer
Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Deforest Kelley, James Doohan,
Nichelle Nichols, George Takai, Walter Koenig, David Warner, Christopher Plummer,
Kim Catrall, Iman, Michael Dorn
"Star Trek" gets back on track after the dreadful "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" (1989) with this fun and exciting film. A high ranking Klingon official (David Warner) is interested in negotiating a peace treaty with the Federation. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees that peace is the way to go and he gets murdered, leaving Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) holding the knife. While the rest of the Enterprise crew is desperately scampering around trying to find out the truth behind the case, Kirk and McCoy are sentenced to exile on a harsh frozen prison planet. They manage to escape with the help (and hindrance) of an incredibly sexy shapeshifter (supermodel Iman), nail the bad guys, uncover and foil an assassination plot, and manage to save the Federation from all out war. At the end, the battered Enterprise is finally decommissioned and our heroes fade into the distance with a touching sense of closure and finality. A great film, but it unfortunately suffers from a lean effects budget, leaving many of the effects sequences looking tacky (but there are a few great ones thrown in). The attitude of the film is still light-hearted and campy, but there are some genuinely funny lines thrown in at Kirk's expense that make it worthwhile.