Finally, the moment has arrived.
William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) has taken the hand of Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) will now assume second in command after Riker takes command of the USS Titan, “…which I am assuming is as nice as the Excelsior”, and taking his newly wedded wife along with him.
While the Enterprise E is on her way to their second celebration/reception on Betazed, Geordi (Levar Burton) picks up small traces of energy located on an inhabited system of a pre-warp civilization that only androids possess — such as Data.
After making its first detour, the Enterprise is barely back en route to Betazed before Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) receives a message from Starfleet command.
Apparently a new praetor is in power from Remus, and the Romulan Empire has a new leader by the name of Shinzon (Tom Hardy), who wants to push for peace with the federation. To initiate the procedures, a federation ship will be tasked to see the validity of the matter, and the Enterprise is the closest ship to the neutral zone.
Is this new ruler really pushing for peace with the Federation after long years of hatred? Or has Earth’s Nemesis finally made his showing?
It’s really hard to not know what to expect going into a Star Trek movie. With over a gazillion episodes and more on the way, you have seen it all. This movie is no exception, but you may find something to enjoy – family ties, a sense that things are moving on, and a sense of a new page being flipped. The idea that the Enterprise family is breaking away is refreshing, yet sad. Guess you have to get promoted sometime.
Picard is no Kirk, but the cowboy style of the original Trek is desperately trying to make its way out of the oh-so-proper Captain of the present, er, future present. As remarkable an actor as Patrick Stewart is, cowboy is not his style. So a brief horrible sequence of Mission Impossible revisited dune buggy chase tries to address a sense of adventure, and fails. Being chased by primitive pre-warp cultured beings in dune buggies should easily foiled with a federation modified 4-Wheeler and a Klingon holding the rear blaster. Escaping by jumping a cliff into a remote controlled shuttle lander bay would probably be better received in the next Bond flick.
This whole part felt too out of place, too out of character, and took too long to get to what they wanted to do, which was show off some cool special effects and hurt your eyes with the yellow tint, and prove that, seemingly, an Enterprise Captain never follows the Prime Directive.
Also, you wonder why the crew of the Enterprise is so shocked that there is another android out there resembling Data. Somehow, in marveling over this duplicate, named B-4, everyone seems to have forgotten Lore. Fascinating.
As Shinzon, Tom Hardy’s performance is pretty good. He’s young and full of hate, twisted to the point that he tries to be scary, but not too insane. It’s Star Trek after all; we don’t like taking a chance with a Hannibal Lecter in space. The mind violation of Troi maybe the sickest thing he does.
This movie gets everyone in the crew involved in a nice way, unlike some TV-to-Movie flicks that sloppily try to have everyone there in awkward ways. You really don’t need to know their histories, because you automatically get the gist that they have been together for a long long time. So if you have a non-trekkie friend or (gasp) significant other who hasn’t seen any of it before, Nemesis is a good one to get them into it. The effects are what you would expect from a silver screen Trek film, and the music is thrilling.
Depending on where you stand on your Trekkie-meter, your reaction may differ. It has its flaws, some scenes that do not compute, no 50-year olds stripping on sand dunes, and no whales to save the day.
