Review – Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home

This is the most “trekky” of all the Star Trek movies. Though they’re all laced with at least some inside jokes, this one’s less of a chocolate chip cookie and more of a big brick of waxy chocolate. As our heroes prepare to return to headquarters to face justice for their shenanigans in number three, the Earth is besieged by a probe that apparently speaks the language of long-extinct humpback whales. So using the time travel slingshot nonsense from “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” they journey back to 1986 to snatch a couple of pre-extinction whales and return with them to the future. Almost all of the rest of the movie is a string of bargain basement culture shock gags as our heroes struggle to avoid seeming too weird in their new environment. Thank goodness they end up in San Francisco, where they have a little less trouble blending in. Large chunks of the picture are strings of mediocre jokes that you won’t get unless you’re familiar with the series characters and their personal quirks. So don’t make this your point of entry into the Star Trek universe. At least it isn’t quite as pointless as the last one. Mildly amusing