# Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

### reviewed by
Sheelba

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

    ..

There are rumors bouncing off the walls of Hollywood that this, the ninth installment of the Star Trek Legacy, is the last we will see. If this is the case then I think this is an appropriate ending to a long series of movies.

Plot Overview Captain Picard (Patrick Steward) and the crew of the Enterprise are faced with a delima, allow a Federation/Son'a alliance to remove the peaceful Bak'u people from their planet and re-locate them to another planet without any re-juvination abilities or defy orders and protect the Bak'u from relocation. Picard and crew (naturally) decide to go against orders and defend the Bak'u.

As the show develops Picard falls in love with the Bak'u woman Anij (Donna Murphy).

    Review
    Writing

Rick Berman and Michael Piller did a great job of crafting a fun, funny, and light-hearted action movie. I found myself laughing at almost all of the jokes in the movie, especially an exchange between Doctor Crusher (Gates McFadden) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) when Troi was commenting on how the radiation of the planet was making her "boobs" firm up.

The plot-line of Bak'u v.s. Son'a was well crafted with an unexpected twist. I also liked the way the show gave us a glimpse of a darker side in the Federation. Dispite the strong points in the main plot there were a few weaknesses, like the way Berman and Piller decided to leave Data's emotion chip out of the episode, a definite backstep in his characters evolution.

The sub-plot relationship between Picard and Anij was stronger than the plot and left me wanting more, much more. I got the impression from the movie that the romantic sub-plot was once the plot of the show but at one point they decided to change the focus, possibly in post-production. The sub-plot was the shining jewel of the entire movie.

On final note, I also liked the scenes between Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi. They were cute, fun, and I feel like their relationship was a longtime coming.

Acting The performances in this movie were polished, a pure joy. Patrick Stewart played his role flawlessly, with an ease that was developed over more than ten years of playing the same role. F. Murray Abraham played the role of Ru'afo with the malicious talent that he showed in Amadeus. The stunning Donna Murphy (Anij) was equally polished, it is easy to see why she won her Tony Awards.

As for the secondary characters, Johnathan Frakes, Michael Dorn (Worf), and Brent Spiner (Data) all delivered great performances once again. LeVar Burton was good in the movie but he wasn't given much time on the screen to really shine. Marina Sirtis was fantastic once again, I just wish they would use her more often since she seems to steal most of the scene's that she is in. Unfortunately Gates McFadden (Crusher) wasn't given much screen time, in fact, some of the Bak'u secondary actors were given more screen time than McFadden.

Directing Jonathan Frakes did another great job in directing this movie and it is easy to see why he has been tapped to direct Total Recall II. There was a time in the film where he used a moving camera shot that seemed to distract from the scene.

Sound The sound effects were good (dispite not being filmed in THX). The movie sountract was not particularly memorable and there weren't any new theme's in the film that stayed in my mind.

Effects The special effects were better than most films. There were a few times where I could tell the effects were computer generated. The stunts were also well done, although once again there was a scene where the stunts looked contrived (when the villagers were blown off of a bridge).

Recap I really enjoyed this movie and plan on seeing it again. The nature of the movie (i.e.. a lighthearted adventure) didn't allow me to walk away with a lasting emotional impression and that is the only real flaw with the movie. I think that if they had focused more on the relationship between Picard and Anij this flaw would have been resolved.

I think fan's of Star Trek will enjoy this movie more than non-fans. This is mainly because the fans finally get to see Picard fall in love and the relationship between Troi and Riker is growing again (yahoo!!!). My only real disappointment with the movie was the way they got rid of Data's emotion chip. I have the impression that either Berman or Pillar didn't like the idea of the emotion chip and want Data to de-evolve into a character trying to discover his humanity again.

    Personally I think this is a mistake.

    Score: 4.5 out of 5

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews