>From http://www.ChainReactionBicycles.com/movies.htm Please note this review is from a general movie section on our website (and yes, it *is* a bicycle shop's website, not exactly where you'd expect to find a movie review section!). It's intentionally casual. --Mike--
STAR TREK: INSURRECTION. The 9th movie in the series (really!), the 3rd with the Next Generation cast, and the first in a very long time where it doesn't even seem like the characters are acting, but rather playing, or almost being the roles as they played them best in the series. A great amount of playful banter amongst the cast does, in fact, give you that "warm and fuzzy" feeling that some reviews have talked about. The villains...well, no, they really aren't all that scary, they're just a bunch of mean & nasty ordinary people, and, in the best tradition of the Next Generation series, you could even say they're misunderstood. Only now, instead of Counselor Troi getting to the bottom of their feelings, it's the wise old sage Picard coming to the rescue...the thinking-man's captain.
This movie could have been a simple two-dimensional story about good and evil, but an intriguing plot twist may cause you to ask some important questions at the very end of the film. Are the Bake truly blameless victims in what has transpired? Perhaps this is my only real disappointment with the film as they spring such a major development far too late in the film to play it out in the way it deserves...just a bit too tidy an ending to a story that's akin in some ways to a Shakespearean tragedy.
I would say this is finally a Star Trek movie that can hold its own against the work of the original series cast in Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home (otherwise known as Save The Whales). Let's hope that it's not followed by something as bad as Star Trek V (Kirk meets God and surprisingly it's not his reflection in a mirror).
One final thing that just came to mind, and it's surprisingly negative. In contrasting this movie with the TV series, I suddenly came to an interesting realization. Unlike the wasn't anything that was, as they say, "Larger than life" that required big-screen treatment. This could have just as easily been an excellent two-part TV episode, with the only thing really setting it apart was the obvious comfort and almost ad-lib quality of the acting. In fact, the scenes that depended upon actors outside of the regular cast were those that fell flat! In contrast, the exceptional two-part Borg cliffhanger/season opener from the TV series (titled "The Best of Both Worlds") transcended the small screen and would have been worthy of all that 70mm film and huge budgets have to offer.
But overall this movie is great fun and anyone familiar with the Next Generation cast is going to have a great time...it would be virtually impossible for a fan of the series to be disappointed. As for those not real Star Trek (The Next Generation) believers...more later. We attended the movie with at least two such people, Steve (who runs our Los Altos operation and just happens to be my brother besides) and his 10-year-old son Eddie. I know Eddie definitely enjoyed it...there's enough action to keep things interesting (the usual phasers, explosions, space battles etc.). My almost-11 daughter Becky definitely enjoyed it, but she's a confirmed Trekkie!
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews