Review of Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) by Movie G — 23 Aug 2011

Another 20% for the Star Trek franchise!

Star Trek Nemesis is the last Star Trek film until the 2009 remake which actually makes it the last of the original films, and man did they end terribly.

The plot is that The Enterprise is sent to Romulus to investigate a distress signal being emitted from it. When they arive at the signals broadcasting place they meet the films villain Shinzon. We later find that he is actually somehow a clone of Picard. It turns out that Shinzon needs some of Picards DNA to "complete him" and then he can use his brand new radiation emitting ship to take over the universe.

This is actually one of the better plots on paper, but I think it's handled so poorly that it just sort of wastes it.

The acting is solid once again. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, & especially Brent Spiner all put in great performances as Picard, Riker, & Data, but the interesting one in this movie is Tom Hardy now of Inception fame who plays Shinzon. He just has this sort of sinister, yet sophisticated way about him, which is perfect because he really just reminds you of an evil Picard.

This film was not directed by Jonathan Frakes as the last two were but instead by Stuart Baird. It's okay, but not as good Jonathan Frakes' direction. The camerawork and editing are also acceptible but nothing special.

The movies special effects are decent, but nothing really comes off as amazing. The final space battle looks pretty cool if you can get past the fact that it uses older CGI and looks sort of dated. The makeup on the alien creatures is pretty good but what the hell happened to Data?!?!?! He used to be white and now he's green. I realize that's some harcore nitpicking but it actually really bothered me.

The movies music is once again done by Jerry Goldmsith. He's pretty good this time. Not as good as previous efforts (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) but it's better than Insurrection.

One thing the last few films have been missing is in my opinion a major theme. All the old ones had one. II had death, III had life, IV had communication, even V had a theme of religion and it was a razzie winner for worst picture! Maybe I'm just missing the themes but for the most part I just feel there aren't any anymore, they gave up feeling that the series was a lost cause, whic is true. By 2002 Star Trek was definately getting old. They were running out of new ideas, and the characters from The Next Generation were getting boring. The serese definately needed a reboot which came 7 years later and really brought the sereis back to it's glory days.

The films have also lost a lot of humour. The original films were always funny, and even the first two Next Generation movies had a good deal of humour but it just sort of disappeared.

That's another that's begun to bother me about The Next Generation crew, they're too serious. Sure Picard is serious and that's what I like about him, but Kirk was fairly serious aswell and he was always complimented by McCoy, Chekov, Scotty, & Sulu who were always cracking one liners. It really makes me miss the original series and realize how much I loved them and how I would anything to make it so that it was Picard who died in Star Trek Generations instead of Kirk.

All in all Star Trek Nemesis is a bad closing to the series. It has mostly the same problems as Insurrection. It's just not that enjoyable and has zero rewatch value. I definately wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone, except people looking to watch every piece of Star Trek there is to which I'd say there's so much I wouldn't start here.