Movie Gazette

This is the final part of the story arc that began with 'The Wrath of Khan' and continued in 'The Search for Spock'. On the planet Vulcan, Admiral James T Kirk (William Shatner) and his fugitive crew agree to return home to Earth in a battered Klingon ship in order to face the appropriate discipline for their unauthorised rescue mission to the Genesis Planet. However, Earth has greater problems than a fugitive crew on the loose – an alien probe is on a direct course and is disabling everything in its path. As it nears Earth, its signals cause Earth's power systems to fail and block out the sun leading to catastrophic results on the planet's surface. It is sending out its call directed towards the Earth's oceans, but no-one knows why or what it wants.

The Federation transmits a general warning about the risk posed by the probe and, when the fugitive crew receive it, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) develops a theory – that the probe is trying to contact a creature in Earth's oceans. Spock discovers that the message is directed at humpback whales, which causes some difficulty as these have been extinct for centuries. To save the Earth, the crew must employ a dangerous slingshot trick to travel back in time to 1986 to find whales able to reply to the signal. With the help of whale scientist Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks), they must seek out a pair of whales willing to travel into the future.

This film is different in style to the previous 'Star Trek' films. This one is much lighter in humour, lower in budget (not necessarily in a bad way), and relies less on effects and more on character interactions. Shatner and Nimoy as Kirk and Spock in particular are allowed to play off one another, reminiscent of the relationship they often shared in the original series. At times the ecologically-sound lessons imparted by the film can get a bit overbearing, but all-in-all this is a cheerful romp through 1986.

A Special Edition with a runtime of about 136 minutes is due for release on the 2nd June 2003.