Movie: "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock"
Year: 1984
Rated: G
Genre: Action / Adventure
Directed by: Leonard Nimoy
Writing credits: Bennet, Rodenberry

Reviewer: Max Burbank
Posted: 3/30/2009

Plot: Yeah, like anybody thought Spock wasn’t coming back from the dead. Turns out his Vulcan Mojo was hanging out right where Nimoy left it at the end of Trek II, inside Leonard “Bones” McCoy. Which is funny, cause I always though it was Kirk and Spock who had a thing going on. Get it? And all we have to do to get out Spock back on is steal the Enterprise, fly to a forbidden planet, pick up his VERY BADLY EXPLAINED brand new body, fight some Klingons on an unstable planet that shouldn’t even be there, head back to Vulcan where New Spock gets his Mojo out of the o’l Doc, and as a door prize gets a white terrycloth bathrobe just like the one I got when I stayed at Embassy Suites.

Review: This is not a good movie. It’s not even a good Star Trek movie, and mostly it’s not even a good bad Star Trek movie. There are a whole host of reasons which I’ll now real off for you, but I’ll pique the suspense by saying there’s one absolutely awesome Shatner moment that makes the whole movie worth it.

Okay, so
1.) Almost no Spock. You get a stand in baby Spock and adolescent Spock that does nothing but squeal. Then at the very end you get about three lines out of Nimoy, most of which boil down to “What th-?” Classic Trek DOES NOT WORK without Spock. Need proof? Watch this movie.
2.) No Kirstie Alley. If you’re a kid, you only know the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Scientologist version of Kirstie Allley, which makes you less of a person than you might be otherwise. She was pretty dang hot on Cheers and before that she was SMOKIN as Spock’s protégé, Lt. Savaak in Trek II. SPOILER ALERT! Alley is NOT in Trek III. Instead of doing the sensible thing and leaving Savaak out of III, they hired Robin Curtiss, a very bad actress with a very bad perm that looked like a tea cup poodle was clutching her head. Vulcan’s DO NOT GET PERMS. Perms are illogical.
3.) Robin Curtis herself. Most recently seen as ‘woman on street’ in the 1999 direct to video “The Sex Monster” (And I wish I made that credit up, check IMDB if you don’t believe me) a movie so bad it has Stephen Bladwin in it, Curtis is a TERRIBLE actress, presumably chosen because first time director Leonard “Spock” Nimoy thought bland would read as emotionless on screen. He was wrong.
4.) Kirk’s son, Doctor David Marcus. Merrit Butrick (I did not make up his last name) play Kirks love child with a blond version of Savaaks poodle clutching his head. So Jimmy Boy sowed some wild oats. Seriously, it’s a pretty HUGE plot development that happened back in Star Trek II. Apparently, Nimoy liked it about as much as he liked Kirstie Alley, ‘cause Butrick (I LOVE THAT NAME) gets killed about a third of the way through the movie. So here’s this massive plot device introduced to… well, do almost nothing really. Except in that is death leads to ONE OF CINEMAS 10 GREATEST MOMENTS!
5.) Leonard Nimoy as director. Hey, you know what’s a real hard thing to do well the very first time you do it? Direct a movie. Rumor has it, letting him direct was the only way to get him to have anything to do with the picture. He went on to direct Trek IV, which is a better movie. For some reason, Nimoy decided to let the bathrobe I mentioned before be his costume for the whole next movie. No one knows why, but here’s my guess. Self loathing. He went on to punsh himself by directing “Three Men and a Baby”.

Okay, I promised you a saving grace. When Kirk’s son gets killed off, Shatner does one of his best takes ever. He stumbles backwards, misses his chair sits on the ground and mumbles the famous words, “Those Klingon Bastards killed my son.”

It’s Shatner’s King Lear moment, and if you haven’t seen this movie, you have to Netflix it right now, just to see this. I tried to find a Youtube of it, but couldn’t, and there’s no point my trying to describe it. It’s sublime.

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)