This fifth attempt to boldly venture where no man has gone before is an improvement on one or two of the others.

However, it sags in the middle when batty Vulcan Lawrence Luckinbill holds forth on the state of God, pain and the Galaxy.

Just as well there's a ship full of hostile Klingons to contend with as well, so, at the beginning and end at least, the sci-fi pot is kept bubbling with a good deal of action.

The direction (by star William Shatner) is serviceable enough and, if things sometimes get too deliberately silly, there's still a deal of amusement to be gained from the banter between the old comrades. 'Please, Captain,' chides Spock (Leonard Nimoy), as Kirk is about to embrace him, 'not in front of the Klingons.'