Star Trek: Nemesis Review
by Tim Wick
As the Star Trek film franchise continues to go where many have gone
before, it becomes increasingly obvious that they have no new stories to
tell.
Now this in itself is not a damnation. Few movies, if any, can truly be
called "original" any longer. They all have some derivative nature. Any
film that is drawing on the history of nine feature films and no fewer than
five TV series (if you count the animated series), is going to have a rough
time telling a new story. The best it can hope to do is tell an old story
in an interesting way.
From this perspective, Star Trek: Nemesis starts off on the right foot. Clearly, the film is aiming to be a Wrath of
Khan for the Next Generation cast. If one is going to copy
something, why not copy the best Star Trek film yet made?
But instead of being a tight psychological duel between evenly matched
opponents, Star Trek: Nemesis is a mess. While it has
several very nice character moments, they cannot hold up to the idiotic plot and strangely boring action sequences.
What a pity because this movie had the first real opportunity outside of
Deep Space Nine to really get to the heart of the Romulan Empire.
Had the film's villain had a different target (yes I am being intentionally
vague), we could have really begun to explore this race that has been a
constant threat to the Federation without ever really being understood.
But the Romulan role in these affairs is kept to a relative minimum and
instead the film (sort of) focuses on the Remans - a race that lives on
Romulus' twin world of Remus. They are the slave race of Romulus - the
freak little brothers the Romulans wish nobody knew about. They also look a lot like Max Shrek from Nosferatu. What is it about
Nosferatu that is inspiring so many character designs that
resemble it lately?
The storyline, such as it is, is pretty much a revenge story but even the
revenge story is misguided. The new Praetor of Romulus, Shinzon, has a beef with Captain Picard and thus the plot is launched with dramatic results - or so we hope. Problem is that he has a bigger beef with someone else and it is never really explained why his issue with Picard takes precedence over his much more obvious and understandable issues with the Romulans.
Just about every plot twist of the film is misguided and unoriginal.
By unoriginal, I do not ever refer to stories outside of the Star Trek
universe as there is no need. What we are dealing with is a franchise so
enamored with itself that it seems more interested in internal references.
What makes this sort of thing so annoying is the fact that the film ignores
such obvious issues as the emotion chip Data had implanted in
Generations or the fact that Commander Worf was Ambassador
to the Kingon Empire at the conclusion of Deep Space Nine. While
Data's emotion chip was handled with a complete lack of grace, that fact is
out there and known to anyone likely to attend the film on opening day.
The depth of my disappointment with this film lies in areas of the film that cannot be discussed without giving away too many spoilers. The depth of the problem is the fact that the characters do not really ring true. Picard is a commander seemingly incapable of acting until it is more dramatic to do so. Worf is nearly unheard from. Crusher is in the film because she needs to be, not because anyone wrote her some interesting dialogue.
The overall feeling of the film is on of promises undelivered. Amidst all
the bad are some wonderful character moments and a few truly terrific action scenes. Because these moments are so good, it is easy for a fan of the franchise to grab onto those few perfect moments and hang on to them as
worth the price. Yet the good character moments are interspersed with
moments that fail to understand the core of the characters at all.
For me, a bad movie is not worth it just because of a few stellar moments.
The overall effect is a film that gives Trek fans another reason to think
that they will never see a good Trek film again and non Trek fans reason to
wonder what the rest of us saw in the series to begin with.
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