Movie Review: Star Trek: Nemesis

Star Trek: Nemesis

The entire cast of the popular Next Generation TV series is brought together again in this tenth of the Star Trek movies, a film which promotions hint may be the last. (I suspect that, once again, the movie will be the last only if it fails to make money for Paramount.)

In Nemesis, the characters finally show some age and progress in their lives as they begin to split up and move into their individual futures. The movie opens at the long overdue wedding of First Officer Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). Riker is set to - finally - be the captain of his own vessel, the Titan, just as soon as a second wedding ceremony on Betazed is held. On the way to Betazed, however, the Enterprise E is first sidetracked by the detected emissions of positronic radiation (unique, of course, to android brains) and is then diverted by Starfleet Command to a diplomatic meeting with the Romulans who are making peace overtures to the Federation. What Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) doesn't know is that both the positronic emissions and the meeting are a set-up geared specifically to get him to Romulus for a fateful face-to-face meeting with the new head of the Romulan government, a human called Shinzon (Tom Hardy) who is a clone of Picard.

Although I'd like to give Star Trek the benefit of the doubt, it strains credulity to believe that the Enterprise E, still the flagship of Starfleet, would have been diverted as a sort of interstellar limousine service for the newly married Rikers' convenience, but that's nothing compared to the movie's introduction of another Romulan planet (called Remus, of course) and its population of Romulans mutated into a race that calls itself the Remans. It seems to me that, somewhere in the myriad TV episodes, books, and previous movies, such a significant fact would have been mentioned before. The behind-the-scenes machinations of the Romulan political machine is fascinating, but the mere existence of the Remans is far-fetched without any previously established foundation. Shinzon's existence is also something that's a little hard to swallow (though it's perfectly plausible the Romulans attempted to clone Picard, his reputed survival in the dilithium mines of Remus is unlikely at best).

In yet other bizarre inconsistencies, Nemesis relies in part on established Star Trek lore and is apparently up to date (Voyager's Captain Janeway, for example, arrived back home in the Alpha Quadrant at the end of the series a couple of years ago, and she's now Admiral Janeway at Starfleet Command). Yet Worf (Michael Dorn) is, without explanation, once again an officer on the Enterprise E bridge (Worf is, as Trekkers know, now the Federation Ambassador to the Klingons). And Data (Brent Spiner) is entirely without his emotion chip (not really a surprise) but also seems to have no memory of ever having had emotions.

The make-up (created by Michael Westmore, the multiple award winning make-up artist who has been with Star Trek for years) is excellent and the special effects superlative. The storyline, however, is a stretch, even for Star Trek. The plot, which was dreamed up in part by Brent Spiner, is good in general terms, but when it gets down to specifics asks us to believe just a few too many unbelievable things.

Still, this is a Star Trek movie. It never fails to bring warmth to my heart and a tear to my eye to see my good "friends" again. Patrick Stewart is so much in possession of his role as Captain Picard and is such a fine actor that every moment of his screen time is a pleasure to watch. Tom Hardy is obviously a very capable young actor, but he neither looks nor sounds anything like Patrick Stewart which, in this case, would have helped quite a bit. Brent Spiner, as always, breathes life into Data, and the rest of the cast is either very good (Sirtis, Dorn, LeVar Burton) or adequate (Frakes, Gates McFadden). I won't ruin the ending for you, but I will say in closing that, though change and growth must come, I think I'll go back to the books for awhile where everyone is in their prime and together where they belong.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Star Trek Nemesis is rated PG-13. There is no foul language, but there are moments of some fairly graphic science fiction violence. The Remans are frightening creatures, and the suspenseful nature of the plot resolution is such that I wouldn't recommend this movie for kids under 12. With that caveat, Star Trek fans of all ages will doubtless want to see Nemesis, and the vast majority of them won't regret it.