Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is simply the best of the Star Trek movies. Rising from the morass of Star Trek V and the well-meaning, if cloying, fun of Star Trek IV, the sixth film in the franchise smacks the Original Crew's grand finale out of the park with enough panache, wit, and sheer thrilling storytelling to make us all wish there could be another six movies featuring Kirk, Spock, and Bones. And since some of them are literally decaying right in front of us on screen, that's saying something!

Undiscovered Country is a simple story well told, and is enhanced by an effective villain, a topical theme, and an appropriate degree of reflection and reverance towards the now-concluding voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's also a kind of Dream Team concoction: franchise heroes Nick Meyer and Leonard Nimoy colluding to create this final adventure, in the face of apathy and underwhelming support from the studio brass.

There is a slight unfinished quality around the seams of Undiscovered Country that can be traced back to the fact that the production was put together in a fraction of the time (and at a fraction of the budget) of its predecessors. In this case, however, the sparseness tends to lend itself to the nature of the show. There's an economy of expression here, a lean focus on story and character, without the deviations towards humour or pathos that mark Treks II through V. The result is a picture that crackles from beat to beat, an energetic tale that fully satisfies.

The tight, efficient script only makes a few errors. An early scene between Spock and Valeris is just weird. The writers lean too heavily on Scotty (as Blundering Oaf) and Chekov (as Mr. Exposition). And General Chang's fondness for Shakespeare becomes overused in the final act.

Otherwise, it's a well-plotted affair featuring lovely character moments for all of our heroes, a fabulously broad galactic scope as the entire Federation gets drawn into the middle of a bungled peace envoy between the humans and the Klingons, and one of the best space battles ever committed to film. Nicholas Meyer sees the Enterprise for what it should have been all along: a submarine. The result is pitched warfare with enough claustrophobic thrill to out-hunt Red October.

Christopher Plummer is of course delightful as General Chang, but Kim Cattrall - in spite of being an avowed Trek fan - is kind of a mixed bag as the traitor Valeris. True, it was originally Saavik, and in those terms, the revelation of the character's involvement in the assassination would have carried a lot more punch. Once Roddenberry mandated the switch, the character should have been dropped outright, or rewritten with a new "hook."

It's the fan moments that make this outing truly special. A lot of our favourite guest stars are back, including Grace Lee Whitney as Rand, Mark Lenard's final performance as Sarek, and the fabulous John Schuck as the Klingon Ambassador. Uhura finally gets to do something related to her job description. And Kirk gets to fight an Evil Kirk, one last time.

The film concludes with one of the greatest acts of balls ever seen on screen: as the story fades out, the signatures of the seven principal actors are writ large across the screen, literally "signing off" on the 25-year adventure of the starship Enterprise. To anyone not beloved of the Trek phenomenon, this must have seemed bafflingly self-reverential. But believe me: as someone who saw this film on opening day with 800 screaming Star Trek fans, it couldn't have been more perfect: the place went nuts. Well done.