The most enjoyable film in the franchise, The Voyage Home was a huge hit and it is easy to see why. While The Search For Spock is mostly fluff, this film went further to become a comedy. There’s some action and quite a bit of adventure, but the jokes are the point and they are really funny.
The setup is very much like Star Trek: The Motion Picture. An alien vessel appears on a course for Earth. It is unstoppable and the planet will not survive unless a way is found to communicate and give the aliens what they want. But in The Voyage Home, they answer “what” right away, and then go on a mission to make it happen, to find a pair of Humpback whales in the past who can talk to the space probe.
While the crew of the Enterprise sometimes had problems with drama, they are adept at comedy and every one excels as a fish out of water. Uhura and Chekov have a great routine where they come off as terrorists, asking the police and pedestrians where they can find the “nuclear wesles.” Spock and Kirk do a comedy bit on lying as they try and fail to answer simple questions. They also comment on the literary giants of our age (including Harold Robbins) and deal with an overly loud punk rocker which resulted in cheers and roars of laughter in the theater back in 1986). Bones shines as he discusses the barbarism of modern medicine and Scotty tries to chat with an old Mac. Only Sulu lacks a really crack routine.
The film carries a strong message too, which it sledgehammers into the viewer. This would have been a major annoyance in a drama, but as a comedy, it works, giving us some meat to support the action while defusing the weight with a few jokes.
This is the most feel-good of all Star Trek films, and the one that best deals with what good there might be in man and that maybe our humanity truly is a good thing. The Voyage home would top my list, but a few minor items bring it down. Though softened, the message could have used a bit of subtlety, and while whale biologist Gillian is a great addition when with the regular crew, the few scenes of her on her own should have been cut. This has always been my “favorite” Trek film, but I will place it as second “best.”