Leonard Nimoy – Spock himself – took over as director this time around, delivering a somber, mournful installment of the Gene Roddenberry franchise. And when the defining trait of your series is dullness, this isn’t exactly the best strategy. Since Nimoy is busy behind the camera, Spock himself remains off-screen for much of the film, as Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and a skeleton crew of familiar faces commandeer the starship Enterprise against orders and return to the planet Genesis to search for their presumably deceased, pointy-eared friend. Christopher Lloyd shows up as a Klingon baddie, but this guy has half the screen presence (and smarts) of Doc Brown. There is also an unfortunate attempt to recreate the famous alien bar scene from Star Wars, where we get a morose “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley) instead of Greedo. It was tough to stay awake during the picture’s finale, a long resurrection sequence involving Spock on his home planet of Vulcan, but I perked up when the final title issued the following threat: “And the adventure continues…”
