The Undiscovered Country is the last of the Star Trek pictures to feature the original crew, and sadly, it's a only moderately successful way to go. The movie begins as an effective thriller, but descends at the halfway mark into a cheesy action film. What makes the movie so frustrating is that it presents some interesting ideas, and the abandons for increasingly unbelievable actions sequences. After all, by this point, these guys were getting old.
Continuing the Star Trek tradition of social commentary, the film is clearly a parable for the end of the Cold War. The United Federations of Planets' (read: NATO) greatest enemy, the Klingons (read: the Russians) have suffered an economic catastrophe and cannot maintain their military budget, so they choose to make peace. James T. Kirk (William Shatner), the Federation's most famous captain, is selected to transport Gorkon (David Warner), the Klingon Chancellor, to Earth where peace negotiations will begin. Kirk, whose son was killed by Klingons in a previous movie, is livid that he should be selected for this mission, which will be his last before retirement. On the way to Earth, Gorkon's ship is fired upon, apparently by the Enterprise and two unknown individuals assassinate him. Kirk and his longtime friend Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) are arrested for the crime, and sentenced to life in prison on a Klingon penal colony.
Up until this point, the movie had been both genuinely interesting and evocative. It's about how old soldiers react when a long war is finally over, and as Gorkon tells Kirk "If there is to be a brave new world, our generation will have the hardest time living in it." I began to wonder what it was like in the high levels of the American military as the Soviet Union dissipated. But as the film enters into its second half, the movie cease to be an effective political thriller and becomes an action film and a bad one at that. William Shatner comes of particularly badly, not due to his acting but his age and weight. It's hard to believe that this guy can run at any great speed, let along win fights. The movie climaxes with the kind of big speech that you only get in movies, followed by the patented Slow Clap.
Overall, the movie is not a very good way to end the franchise. It is easily the darkest, both literally and figuratively than any of the other Star Trek pictures, which are generally much more optimistic and upbeat. The last scene of the movie, where the crew symbolically says goodbye to the audience does work, but it also makes us one wonder why the rest of the film wasn't a bit warmer.
But the first half is so good I'm giving the movie a minor recommendation anyway. Star Trek fans will of course want to see it, and for awhile anyway, so will anyone who likes good political drama.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)