I'm of the opinion that if you have to explicitly stop thinking and reduce yourself to an unquestioning imbecile shovelling butter and watered-down supermarket cola into your face to enjoy a piece of fiction then the makers have failed miserably at their craft. As such, an advisory statement to "[not] take the plot too seriously" is equivalent to "this isn't actually worth watching if you use your brain as anything more than a big fat pattern recognition engine".
Star Trek V has ridiculous quasiscience abuse (travel to the centre of the galaxy is just plain not going to happen in the sort of timespan we see in the movie given what everything else suggests starships are capable of), severe character derailing (Scotty is the best example), contrived coincidences (Sybok's magical ability to enlist people to his lunatic cause is just too convenient for words) and incredibly lame jokes which just serve to drive the last few nails in the coffin. William Shatner is well-known for wanting to overinflate his role in Star Trek beyond all reason (for example, his novels where Captain Kirk is revived from the dead on the surface of Veridian III thanks to Borg nanoprobes) and it shows hard - the stupidly overinflated deck numbers, the initial intent that Sybok head to the centre of the universe. In addition, the God supertext is wildly incongruous with Vulcan culture and Star Trek's generally aspiritual outlook (novelisations rationalising this don't score points with me because you don't get credit for things which aren't in the movie). This, ultimately, is why Star Trek V was almost completely excised from Star Trek canon.
Shatner may have had a hand in making Star Trek the success that it was in the 1960s, but now he's a poisonous influence on it and should be kept at arm's length at all times.
I agree with most of what you said, but but I fail to see how resurrecting Kirk is example Shatner "overinflating his role beyond all reason", given how poorly his death was handled and the novels really being just glorified fan fiction (that's not a jab at their quality, that's just what they essentially are).
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Not as bad as they say, but bad nonetheless
That sums it up, really. Yes, the script and effects weren't up to par, but the film is far from unwatchable. Laurence Luckinbill was well cast as Sybok and perhaps all too convincing as one of those annoying self-help gurus. The film's biggest misstep (which is saying something) may have been turning Scotty into a raving buffoon for cheap (non-)laughs. If you're going to watch it, don't take the plot too seriously and you should be reasonably entertained.