After the debacle of the previous film, I made the conscious
decision to watch this next one completely sober. Less conscious was the
decision to eventually write this several weeks after watching the film. Ah
well…
This is probably the worst film in the series at this point.
Granted, any film that tries to tackle the big question about the origins of
the universe is pretty admirable, but everything else in it kinds of just flops
sideways onto the proverbial carpet like some sort of resigned, defeated
animal. The basic premise of the film from memory is that Spock has a
half-brother who has embraced passion/emotion (probably the wisest choice considering
everything else in the film) and becomes a fundamentalist looking for God.
Through sheer retardation and bloodless violence, he assumes control of several
diplomatic figures and armed thugs so he can eventually assume control of a
starship and find where he believes God is. That ship just happens to be the
Enterprise, whose senior officers/actors are on R&R and literally have to
be called up to re-join for active service.
The film has some pretty funny moments though, so I’ll do my
best to list them off. Shatner’s introductory scene features him supposedly free
climbing El Capitan in Yosemite Park, while long-suffering associates Cam, Dave
and I waited eagerly for the 25 year old man playing Shatner to turn his head
accidentally or something. For some reason, the film’s producers wanted to
introduce a potential romantic relationship between the
portly-Canadian-man-impersonating-a-Scotsman known as Scotty and the unfortunate
communications officer Uhura, which also earned several laughs. The lack of any
real exterior shots of the Enterprise this time was really noticeable, as this
film supposedly had a massive budget cut during production. Spock
nerve-pinching a horse was also pretty hysterical.
Perhaps the most regrettable thing about the film was that I
feel there was a sense of ambition to it. I mean sure, Shatner directed this
one, but it seemed like he really wanted to try and top the previous film with
some introspective character work that ultimately was overshadowed by problems
concerning budget and general execution. Watching Bones live out the memory of
him failing to save his terminally ill father was probably the best crafted
aspect of the film. Otherwise, it’s just mostly a slog – if the best the
movie can depict Eden as is a desert with a purple lens filter,
then good riddance.
CHEKOV HUMILIATION 5: Makes wind noises into Sulu’s
communicator (no context for that, sorry), and has to trick the film’s villain
into believing he is the Enterprise’s captain. What fucks me off is that he
pulls off the latter.
