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The final Star Trek movie before the reboot of J.J. Abrams and the question is will the adventures of the next generation go out on a high note, like the original cast did in The Undiscovered Country or will it turn out to be a dud? Unfortunately the latter is the case here as this movie had not only me dozing off at certain moments but also a friend with whom I watched the whole series with. We both have 40 hour workweeks but what are the odds of not only me but two people actually having a difficult time in keeping their eyes open? At one point he suggested to turn the movie off and watch the last half 40 minutes later that week. My response was to just let it run. So 70 minutes into the movie the discussion became whether we wanted to postpone the torment or just get it over with.
Now I’m a bit unsure if I’m qualified to review this movie as certain bits and pieces where lost to me because I was too busy on concentrating on keeping my eyes open. But the fact that I had to do that and that I had a clear opinion on not pausing the movie to watch it another time when I’m clearly awake makes it clear that I saw enough of the movie to comment on it.
It is clear to me that the Next Generation crew doesn’t have the chemistry between them like the original did. Maybe it’s because of the camp-value of Kirk, or how he, Spock and Bones were always having this fun smalltalk. The difference between them and The Next Generation is that they were fun to watch and could ham it up, while with The Next Generation cast they play it straight and the only that is supposed to be funny is Data. Data however, is the Jar-Jar Binks of the Star Trek Universe. He is annoying, he is certainly not funny and when the movie actually has the balls to (don’t read further if you haven’t seen the movie yet) kill him off I was glad. But that is only at the end and then we are still left with a clone, or better said: an earlier prototype that looks exactly the same but is not as advanced as data so he says this stupid things all the time because he hasn’t learned much yet. So this movie actually has to Datas in it for the majority of its running time.
The movie starts with some trade federation negotiating peace with the Romulans. You know what other timeless classic started off like this? The Phantom Menace, the bastard child in the Star Wars universe. But all it really is all about is that Picard has an evil clone working for the Romulans pretending he wants peace but really wants to attack the Earth. Or something like this. It was all really uninvolving and boring actually. The movie tries to tackle the Darwinian concept of nature versus nurture: If the kindhearted Captain Picard had been born into a brutal existence, would he have grown up to become evil? You know what other movie had this subject matter? Twins, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. So Star Trek: Nemesis is nothing more than a mash-up between The Phantom Menace and Twins, and who in their right mind wants to see something like that?
