Oh dear, Gene Roddenbury must be throwing conniptions in his grave. STAR TREK: INSURRECTION, the ninth of the big screen Star Trek efforts is just plain pitiful. The story is a pretty pedestrian matter. There are two groups of people: the Baku and the Son'a. The former live in a utopic planetary version of the fountain of youth. The latter are dying, and decide they want the planet for themselves and to do so, they have to eject the former. Somehow, and for reasons never made clear, some loser Federation Admiral named Dougherty is involved with the violators.
Data cottons onto the plan and takes matters into his own hands. The Federation order Data bumped since he has obviously blown a circuit, so Picard suddenly becomes Luke Skywalker to save Data, uncover the darstedly deeds and yada yada yada.
The movie is a sadly unbalanced affair, almost as if certain members of the cast just didn't want to be there. Dr. Crusher gets to speak about three lines I think and fire a gun every now and then, but otherwise she's a miserable bystander. And Troi doesn't fare much better, since she only gets to frolic playfully with Riker. Ugh, it's obvious he's also the director.
Gordi's starts out with his bright blue eyes. It's really weird that with all that technological capability that noone had realized that most African Americans don't have blue eyes. Worf goes through puberty and gets a pimple that makes him deliciously vulnerable, but it's never really clear whether this is something to do with the planet or just with Klingons.
Basically the movie belongs to Jon Luc. The man does everything. He saves Data, he rescues the planet and he even gets romanced. Now it's all very nice for Jon Luc, but it's not so nice for the audience.
The guest stars do okay. Donna Murphy is Picard's lover, but she so is smugly calm and wise I wanted to slap her. F. Murray Abraham as the evil leader of the Son'a is his usual villainous self. There's a great moment when his forehead pops open from rage. That surely must be how he really felt being stuck in such a sad movie.
Maybe it's the fact that this movie is number 9 that is the problem. After all it proved a stumbling block for many a classical music composer, who wrote 9 symphonies and then hung up their manuscript. If Insurrection is the best Star Trek can do, then it's time to stop making it so.