Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 7, 1979

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

50	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Watch Now

Stream On

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Vincent Canby

Watching Star Trek — the Motion Picture...is like attending your high-school class's 10th reunion at Caesar's Palace. Most of the faces are familiar, but the décor has little relationship to anything you've ever seen before. Read full review

Gary Arnold

Star Trek is an essentially passive adventure movie, made more so by director Robert Wise's failure to prevent the protracted effects sequences from retarding the narrative pace. [8 Dec. 1979, p.E1]

David Sterritt

As dull as it is to watch, "Star Trek" at least possesses a measure of intellectual pizzazz: not enough to provoke thought and discussion, exactly, but more than many "Star Wars" imitators have bothered to give us. [4 Jan. 1980, p.15]

Jack Kroll

No matter how important teamwork is on a job of industrialized entertainment like these ostensibly visionary films, the vision itself has to come from a single inspired sensibility. Despite some intriguing ideas, episodes and effects, that isn't the case with "Star Trek." [17 Dec. 1979, p.110]

Judith Martin

There are only so many ways to photograph black starry space and the under-bellies of spaceships, and the films that got there first used them all up. Read full review

Charles Champlin

What you see is what you respond to, and what you see is a unique cultural phenomenon, and a film that for all its visual splendors falls well short of its aspirations. Read full review

EmpireWilliam Thomas

The big screen was where none of them had gone before, and you can tell. Read full review

Kathleen Carroll

It is a purely mechanical movie that is no more dazzling to the eye than a nighttime landing at Kennedy airport. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

Unfortunately, director Robert Wise has no feeling for Trek's pop insouciance, and the movie unfolds ponderously. Read full review