Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

"You haven't heard Shakespeare until you've heard it in the original Klingon.", 13 February 2008

In light of an upcoming peace conference between the Klingons and the Federation, Captain Kirk puts aside his personal feelings and welcomes a Klingon delegation to dine on the Enterprise. But soon after the Klingons return to their ship they are attacked and the Klingon Ambassador is assassinated by someone believed to be from the Enterprise. Kirk and McCoy are put on trial for the murder, found guilty, and sentenced to hard labor. Surely this can't be the end of Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew.

I'm not even sure I can be fair to these Star Trek movies anymore. I'm finding it harder and harder to take them seriously. The situations, dialogue, and action are quite ridiculous. Add to that the incredible over-acting on the part of William Shatner and his hair-piece and you're left with something I find more comedic (albeit unintentional) than dramatic. For example, watching Kirk score with Iman or watching Kirk make goofy faces as he fights his double – laugh out loud funny!

In reality, however, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the best of the three Star Trek movies I've watched recently (Generations and The Final Frontier being the other two). I actually had fun watching it. I attribute much of that to the direction. Is it a coincidence that without Shatner in the director's chair (as he was in Star Trek V) that much of the movie actually worked for me. Sure, the writing, etc. may have also been better, but I'll argue the direction was as well. The mystery elements of the story were nicely handled even though much of the solution was way too easy to guess. There's nothing quite like a good conspiracy to keep a movie interesting. Finally, it's difficult to watch Star Trek VI and not be impressed with the considerable talent of Christopher Plummer. He makes several of the Star Trek regulars look like chumps in comparison. His General Chang is one of the more interesting characters I've run into in a Star Trek movie.

6/10