The announced farewell voyage -- and the faithful follower of the series can best show his loyalty by praying the creators stick to their word and desist. The opening, notwithstanding the outer-space explosion and its emanating shock wave (looking a bit like a well-blown smoke ring), is not quite the James Bond-ian grabber of perfected formula; and it soon winds down into a lengthy stretch of plodding and gabby exposition. It seems that the Klingon moon Praxis, prime energy producer for the entire (evil) empire, has blown up, leaving the Klingons with fifty years to live and thus a new willingness to talk treaty. The parallels of this to our nuclear-age Cold War are constrictingly obvious, all the way down to the Chancellor of the High Council sharing the first three letters of his name with Gorbachev. This is the sort of symbolism that seeks exact equivalence instead of enlargement. And it isn't until forty minutes or so into the running time that we finally encounter the mystery element we have come to treasure in a Star Trek installment. Never before, though, had the so-called mystery element shrunken so near to a mere whodunit (and a willhedoitagain), a down-to-earth detective puzzle cum chase thriller simply tricked up with the furniture and appliances of science fiction. And the solution, when it comes, is not so concerned to be dramatically and logically satisfying as just to show off the creative team as broad-minded, equal-opportunity type chaps. Or, from the dramatic and logical angle, jelly-spined, fence-straddling type chaps. With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Kim Cattrall, and Christopher Plummer; directed by Nicholas Meyer. (1991) — Duncan Shepherd
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