Fountain of Youth Needed
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
Seen on 19 December with Lothlorien at the SONY Village East for $8.75
Ever see a movie where too much and too little was happening simultaneously? That's the problem with *Star Trek: Insurrection* in a nutshell. Or perhaps it just that, as Lothlorien put it, it's just a long episode of the TV show (that being *Star Trek: The Next Generation*). This is the ninth *Star Trek* movie, and the third of the "next generation."
The plot, in a nutshell: On a ringed planet, the Baku are an agrarian race resembling humans in every way who turn out to be ageless Luddites, having eshewed technology centuries before. Their activities are observed by the Federation and its new allies, the Sona--observed unseen until android Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) goes berserk, does't respond to orders and shoots at the secret HQ until its cloaking device fails.
Meanwhile, it becomes obvious that the Sona and the Federation are in an unholy alliance as they plot to relocate the Baku and capture the helpful radiation from the planet's rings. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is appalled by the plan to relocate the 600 Baku, as it interferes with the Prime Directive to not interfere with cultures, and he leads a revolt on humanitarian grounds. That, and he has a love affair of sorts with a 300-year-old Baku woman, Anij (Donna Murphy) who doesn't look a day older than 45. Must be that Oil of Olay.
Meanwhile, Data "learns how to be a child" from the 12-year-old Artim (), who doesn't look a day older than 13.
That's all well and good. However, there are two problems: The less-than-compelling story limps along, and an overabundance of explosions and shootouts that don't distract you from a lack of pacing and story development.
What fans of the show will like are the in jokes and character development of their favorites. However, many dramatic moments are missed in a somewhat confusing and unfocused array of twists that occur during aforementioned spectacles (shooting, explosions, mass migrations, chase sequences, etc).
What *is* entertaining here is the dialogue, the relationships between the established characters, the comedy (e.g., Picard and Worf (Michael Dorn) singing Gilbert & Sullivan to the out of control Data), and little touches (like Worf undergoing, again, the pains of Klingon adolescence on the rejuvenating planet).
The special effects are scattershot as well, although the Sona's hi-tech versions of reconstructive surgery, administered by intergalactic versions of video babes a la Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" girls, is amusing. The Sona, by the way, look like living mummies, and ooze body fluids and crack their skin when they get mad.
The performances range from adequate to entertaining, with the best ones turned in by Stewart, Spiner, and F. Murray Abraham as the vengeful Sona leader Ru'afro.
A final problem that actor and director Jonathan Frakes (a/k/a Cmdr. William Riker) should take note of in the future: Don't shoot so much in direct sunlight. Much of the action takes place in daylight on what surely looks like the lot where they filmed all the Planet of the Apes movies. Sci-fi often works better with the dark blanket of outerspace and the artificial lights of the spacecraft and the computers. Never has daylight seemed so... dull.
More movie reviews by Seth Bookey, with graphics, can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2679/kino.html
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