In this first theatrical venture for the television series created by Gene Roddenberry, going boldly where no man has gone before mainly means floating … and floating … and floating through space, until you reach a state of Zen bliss or crushing boredom. If the endless interstellar vistas of 2001: A Space Odyssey tested your

The best-received installment in the science-fiction franchise created by Gene Roddenberry is a much more conventionally structured action movie than its debut. Yet if this is the supposed high point for the Star Trek movie series, it’s still a low point for sci-fi. Despite phaser shoot-outs and starship battles, these pictures remain inert affairs, obsessed

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,

“…works as a bracing reminder that superheroes don’t exist and that their movies can’t save us.

“I realized I had had my fill of the series right around the time Jason Statham was forced to perform a striptease in order to get the keys to his car.

“We’re in a new era of action angst.

A big, dopey, old-fashioned, science-fiction disaster movie – which is odd, because its 1951 predecessor was anything but. Like the original The Day the Earth Stood Still, this gets political, but the message basically boils down to: Recycle, or the aliens will come and get you. That’s the basic explanation Keanu Reeves gives as Klaatu,

"Couldn’t the Pangs have spent some of that studio money on more lights?"