reviewed by Charity Bishop
 

One of the more unusual installments in the film franchise based off the successful original sci-fi series is The Voyage Home. Blending futuristic peril with then-relevant ecological concerns, it whiplashes our favorite Star Fleet team through time and space in an attempt to save the future of planet earth...

Since abandoning orders to remain at base and commandeering and then destroying the Star Ship Enterprise, Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) has been ordered to appear before a tribunal and defend his behavior. He and his associates, including Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), engineer Scotty (), navigator Checkov (), their communications officer Uhura (), and pilot Sulu (), have taken refuge temporarily on Vulcan while Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy) recovers from his recent near-death experiences. The half-human, half-Vulcan former first officer is attempting to rediscover all the information lost during his mind-meld with McCoy. Still excessively logical and unable to understand most of the crew's jokes, he is determined to return with Kirk and stand trial alongside him -- since, after all, it was because of Spock that Kirk disobeyed his orders and put his own life at risk.

Their return flight to earth is interrupted by the presence of a foreign probe, which hovers above the planet, disrupts all transmissions and power sources, and begins evaporating the oceans. No one knows what it is, what it wants, or how to stop it until Uhura runs its beacon transmission through a language synthesizer and Spock recognizes it as the same sound made by the humpback whale -- a species that is now extinct thanks to late twentieth century whaling. Unless they can convince the probe to return home with the whale's song, earth will be destroyed. They have no alternative but to attempt time travel and bring forward a whale to answer the alien transmission. But when they land on the coast of California in the 1980's, their power source has been all but drained and it is doubtful they can return to their own time without complications. Not to mention... they have to locate a whale.

Many of the episodes in the original series had subtle social commentary attached to them but this is a little more blatant in its message -- one I think almost everyone will agree with. As Spock puts it, "Hunting any creature to extinction is illogical." True, it might be a little peachier than usual, but I didn't mind a message about the importance of preserving one of God's most mysterious and peaceful mammals, and it provides an interesting opportunity for our favorite characters to interact with a more recent time period. Seeing them wandering the streets of L.A. in their crazy outfits is fun. Watching them interact with an obnoxious kid with a boom box on a bus is even more so. And then there is the humorous subplot involving Spock's inability to understand the use of "colorful metaphors" (profanity). When Kirk insists that in this time period, unless you used them every other word, people did not pay any attention to you, he attempts to employ that tactic -- with hilarious results. (Fortunately, he uses only mild profanities, like "hell.") The script is quite funny actually, with some classic comedic moments but also instances of heart-wrenching emotion. McCoy's visit to a hospital and his constant complains about it being "like the dark ages!" when relating to modern medicine are among the greater scenes present. The actors by now are comfortable in their roles and turn in good performances.

I did find it a little bland at times (probably because of the setting) and rather missed having Spock in uniform (he spends the entire film in white robes, which increases the humor) but toward the end it takes an impacting turn and I will admit that the final shot put a bit of a lump in my throat. There is not much to concern parents but there is a decent amount of mild profanity (some of it meant for laughs) and two abuses of GD. There is not much violence other than a ship crashing into the ocean, and some scenes of peril, but animal lovers will be horrified by a scientific video showing the intricacies of whaling. We watch on a secondary video screen during a tour as whales are harpooned, dragged on board ships, sliced from one end to the other, and then skinned. Nimoy took the director's seat for this film and the previous one and has done a nice job integrating special effects and storyline. He knows how to propel the plot forward and only makes one mishap in which the audience doesn't quite know what to do with a weird "dream" that Kirk experiences. It felt out of place and surreal and didn't make much sense, but other than that it was an entertaining film that leaves the audience something to ponder at the end.