The tenth Star Trek film has been greeted by many as some sort of last straw for the enduring franchise, but in point of fact, it's merely a sheepishly derivative science fiction actioner kicking the dirt around the corner from popular cousins Harry Potter, Frodo, and Yoda. Opening with a shot of an exotic urban cityscape that wouldn't look out of place in Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones, Star Trek: Nemesis attempts to appear as an upscale, fresh entry in the canon. But outside of a random "away team" action scene transparently designed to vent a ship-bound story, Nemesis feels chintzy and slapdash.
Producer Rick Berman enlisted two Trek newcomers: screenwriter John Logan and director Stuart Baird. Logan, still dining out on his Gladiator co-writing credit, tinkers around with an intriguing premise but with little creative facility for dialogue or structure. Baird--a major Hollywood editor turned director of second-tier action films--ironically fails to bring a suitable rhythm to the story, though his sometimes muddled action occasionally locates a certain testosterone-fueled clarity.
This time around, the Enterprise crew's celebration of a "family function" is interupted by a crisis involving the Romulans, old villains of Enterprises over the years. The Romulans, as it turns out, have a brother race in the shadow-dwelling Remans, and their champion, Shinzon (Tom Hardy), has staged a coup d'etat in the Romulan senate. Sent to investigate, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and company awkwardly pause to investigate another surprise: a doppleganger of android crewmember Data (Brent Spiner, who co-authored the story). Shinzon, likewise, turns out to be Picard's Jungian shadow, setting up an intriguing challenge for the de facto leading men of the series.
Unfortunately, Logan and Baird don't know where to take this story. Self-professed fan Logan settles for perfunctory rips from earlier Trek shows and movies (Nemesis overtly calls up not only Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but the sixth film--The Undiscovered Country--and the much-maligned ninth film, Insurrection). Worse, Logan loses touch with the real consequences of his own plot (the Romulans, whose fate hangs in the balance, fade to the background). Suffering under a questionable story, cast-member-turned-director Jonathan Frakes at least kept Insurrection lively, but Nemesis gets the better of Baird, who indulges talky (and too often vapid) stretches that kill the time between action scenes.
The production team's "new" direction seems likely to split the difference between fans and neophytes, impressing neither. Plot holes abound (including both internal logic and shady continuity to the both the television and film series), and the Enterprise crew--outside of the reliable and well-salaried Stewart and Spiner--must take what they get and like it, not unlike the fans. The dark, poorly designed special effects pale in comparison to the scrappy but rousing effects of earlier Trek films: Baird's CGI space battles mostly bleed into an overwrought sea of composition, color, and movement which defy blinking eyes to focus (the design of Shinzon's ship is intimidating but otherwise impractical).
If Nemesis lacks in sense and charm, it compensates with performance and calculatedly memorable, even emotional moments. No fan will be able to fully resist the epochal series of climaxes, beginning with an overdue use of Data's form as function in outer space. Logan teases the evergreen maritime imagery of the series with more submariner theatrics and the starship equivalent of "ramming speed." As in the Bond series, the supervillain waltzes around his best opportunity at success, then waits for his plans to go up in fireballs.
The ending--which all but ignores the likely environmental consequence of the final Starfleet solution--has serious consequences for a cast member. But with bets firmly hedged, the film blunts the impact of the loss with a seemingly open condescension to the audience. Star Trek: Nemesis appears to be the end of the road for the Next Generation cast. With the possible exceptions of Stewart and Spiner, the cast's exit is unfortunately inglorious.
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