Father Geek here with possible bad news for Star Trek Geeks everywhere, and that includes many of us here at AICN's home offices. Paramount had a screening last night. 14 spies for AICN managed to get in and all but one responded with not so cool reports. What follows are a couple of the bads and the single positive review. Damn I wanted this one to kick ass, oh well here's the first report...
Call me "The Insurrectionist"
I just saw a screening today (October 15th) of "Star Trek: Insurrection" at Paramount. If you thought "Generations" was bad then you haven’t seen "Insurrection." If anything it has succeeded in continuing the odd numbered curse!
It doesn’t start off with a bang as it should. It rips off the TNG episode "Who Watches the Watchers" instead. Ho-hum! The first third of it has some funny stuff that makes it enjoyable but then it quickly degenerates into a mediocre TV episode. Maybe the "Voyager" writers made some uncredited contributions.
Picard endlessly philosophizes with his "girlfriend" and Data learns what it is to be human (Again!!) from one of the most annoying kid actors I’ve seen in a while. Picard’s girlfriend is too serious and bitchy to be anyone’s girlfriend but Worf’s. And speaking of Worf, he had nothing to do in this movie but fire fancy phaser rifles and worry about a pimple on his nose. It’s packed with a lot of pointless but good FX (the ones that were complete anyway). Seemed like they were played up to salvage a bad script. The best thing about the movie was the Riker/Troi romance but that didn’t get as much screen time as Mr. Stewart’s contractually obligated big romance.
I’m sure you have noticed my not mentioning the bad guys in this movie. That’s because the bad guys were as scary as the tribbles. The Romulans get mentioned a few times in the movie and how I wish they were not just mentioned. You could have a field day with this turkey. Here’s a quick run down of some more of them but not necessarily in any order…
1. Judging from the blonde and blue eyed actors picked for the Baku villagers the planet must have been Scandinavia.
2. The villagers are sickeningly happy and idyllic before the Federation comes and spoils everything.
3. The Son’a ships looked like the left over designs of Dominion ships.
4. A cheesy shot of our heroes right out of a Leone Western.
5. Cave scenes…Boy, these Trek guys are imaginative!
6. A contrived space battle in a nebula that we’ve seen a hundred times before.
7. A CGI Baku pet bringing back fond memories of the CGI monkey from Lost in Space.
8. The Opening sequence right out of "The Little House on the Prairie."
9. The title music (didn’t sound like a temp track) right of Jerry Goldsmith’s Recycle Bin.
10. An ending with so little tension that you couldn’t blame a guy for leaving the theater to feed his meter.
Should I recommend this movie to anyone? What do you think Harry? I heard someone yell out "rental" at the end. That sounds about right.
PS: Did I read this "Gary 8" guy saying that this is the best Trek yet? His real name wouldn't be Rick Beramn would it?
The Insurrectionist
