Review of Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) by Manuel A — 18 Nov 2009

The 9th film in the "Star Trek" series finds Picard (Patrick Stewart, "Safe House") and crew called in to investigate why Data (Brent Spiner, "Dude, Where's My Car?") has malfunctioned and attacked a race of peaceful citizens. They find a deeper plot involving an alliance between the Federation and an alien race led by Ru'afo (F. Murray Abraham, "Finding Forrester") that all look like they've had WAY too many facelifts. They remind me of the citizens of apocalyptic L.A. in "Escape From L.A." where everyone's gone mad with plastic surgery. This of course leads to some gruesome skin stretching scenes.

It seems this planet's rings hold a fountain of youth type affect that causes it's inhabitants (refugees from another planet) to not age. It also brings youthfulness back to anyone who visits it, including the crew of the Enterprise.

It's a slowed down pace from the action packed "Star Trek: First Contact", but it's still done pretty damn good, thanks to returning director Jonathan "Riker" Frakes. Some have argued it's more like a full length episode of the show, but coming from the perspective of someone who doesn't want any of the "Star Trek" shows, I thought it was a pretty enjoyable entry in the series.

Some of the cast members get slightly more to do here as well including Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden), Counselor Tro (Marina Sirtisi, and Worf (Michael Dorn). More humor is added this time around, including jokes about Worf going through Klingon puberty, and the sudden youthful spryness the characters experience.

The crew disobeys orders from Starfleet to protect the citizens of the planet from being transported off the planet to gain access to the fountain of youth. This allows the characters to be seen for once in casual dress instead of their usual uniforms, like Picard pimped out in a leather jacket. This was similarly done with "Star Trek" 3 & 4 where Kirk & his crew gave their jobs the finger and took shit into their own hands.

While not as exciting as previous installments (until the action packed finale), there's good use of the tamed down plot to emphasize more on the character development and mankind's thirst to remain young. All and all, a fine outing for the "Trek" films.