Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Paramount Pictures | Release Date: November 26, 1986

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

71	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Darren Franich

The Voyage Home is pure, joyful cinema. Read full review

Roger Ebert

This is easily the most absurd of the "Star Trek" stories - and yet, oddly enough, it is also the best, the funniest and the most enjoyable in simple human terms. I'm relieved that nothing like restraint or common sense stood in their way. Read full review

Rita Kempley

It crackles with comedy, but it's no space cartoon, nor self-lampoon. It's a happy, heartfelt chapter that reunites the original cast with the original TV format, shying away from the cold and epic scale of the preceding movie adventures. Read full review

Paul Attanasio

Here's a science fiction movie where the special effects are in the background. And the effect is, well, rather special. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

It has an irresistibly sure touch, an easy command of its audience. It hits the right buttons, strikes the right chords, plays with our expectations with the right blend of savvy, guile and imagination. [26 Nov. 1986]

Staff (Not Credited)

Kirk & Co return to present-day San Francisco to save the whales in the most enjoyable film of the series so far, also returning to the simplistic morality-play format that gave the original TV series its strength. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Nimoy directs the comedy in a loose, relaxed, almost sketch-like manner, but when the film moves into its multiple-cliffhanger climax, he's still able to generate some genuine dash and tension. The only drawback is that the Enterprise gang is starting to look a little long in the tooth for such strenuous action. Read full review

James Berardinelli

Star Trek IV, while not a superior effort, is an effective and enjoyable sample of entertainment -- not good science fiction, but a lightweight piece of comic fantasy utilizing characters so familiar that they feel like old friends. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

By far the silliest and most self-mocking of the series, with the interplay between Spock and Kirk veering somewhere between Hope and Crosby and Cheech and Chong, but also one of the most successful. Read full review

Janet Maslin

The technical minutiae, the solemn silliness and the preachy tone occasionally sounded here...are all essential to the Star Trek mystique. Whatever it is, it seems durable beyond anyone's wildest dreams. And Mr. Nimoy, by injecting some extra levity this time, has done a great deal to assure the series' longevity. Read full review

David Ansen

The latest Star Trek is the most down-to-earth, and certainly the funniest, movie in the series, further evidence of the show's amazing durability. [1 Dec. 1986, p.89]

Staff [Not Credited]

Latest excursion is warmer, wittier, more socially relevant and truer to its TV origins than prior odysseys.

Bob Thomas

The ecological message is commendable, and there are some amusing situations with the space travelers in contemporary scenes. Nimoy's direction keeps a lively pace and the special effects are state of the art, as always. [08 Jan 1987]

Bill Cosford

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is the dopiest and most congenial in the series, an indication that the producers have at last acknowledged that what they're dealing with is not science fiction or adventure, but a kind of cosmic fluke. [27 Nov. 1986, p.F1]