After the middling success that Leonard Nimoy had in directing the last two Star Trek Movies, it's time for a change; maybe a REAL man can direct better. It's time for the directorial debut of William Shatner. Possibly as a consequence, our first scene with any of the known actors is that of a Kirk who is clearly not Shartner free climbing up a steep stone wall in the middle of the mountains. Such a manly thing for him to do while Spock uses rocket boots to match his feat.
There are Klingons here in a Bird of Prey, but they are - at best - a distraction to fill time. They created flamboyant characters and a lot of not entirely convincing headgear to make them look alien. They are as much of a filler as the repetitive camping scenes that are intended to be endearing but effectively just drag this movie on and on.
The main thrust of the movie is Spock's half brother (who has ALL of his emotions) wanting to get to the center of the galaxy, cross the Great Barrier, and meet God. There are many problems with this idea in that there is no Great Barrier at the center of the galaxy, it would take QUITE some time to get there (even at maximum warp), he has no starship, and they never give evidence as to why he would even believe that God lives there.
This is the worst of all the Star Trek movies. I'm not even going to hedge that by saying that a Depp Space 9 movie would be worse if they ever managed to pull one together. Even the special effects were worse than the previous movies.
The way that Spock's brother convinces people to go on his journey with him is by using Vulcan telepathy that he has somehow managed to do without touching them. This flies in the face of everything we know about Vulcans being touch telepaths, but he doesn't act like a Vulcan in any other way, so why quibble?
The horrifically bad special effects used on God when they finally get there are inexcusable. 1989 was the year after the Godzilla reboot and Armageddon; how could they have done such a bad job on all of these effects? They recycled the ship effects from previous movies (no, not the actual shots, but they didn't try to do anything different or better than before).
The story is laughably bad
The direction is miserable
Acting is worse than usual
Dialogue is bad
Special effects are surprisingly disappointing
1.0/5