After achieving gold with First Contact, the producers wisely kept many of the high standards in place when making the follow up, Star Trek: Insurrection.
Unfortunately, the writers weren't retained, leaving an uninspired Michael Piller to write the blandest of the Trek movies.
The director, composer, cinematographer and cast all return to the same level of ability as before. The only returning player that drops the ball is production designer Herman Zimmerman. His designs appear to be derived from the coma they awoke him from before work and his use of a saturated royal blue in the Sona spaceship interiors make it look like a visual effects bluescreen, without the effects. Therefore, the sets and movie look incomplete, on occasion.
ILM's replacement FX company do a competant job. However the visuals don't stand up to close scrutity, with most shots appearing too CGI.
The foundation of the movie, the basic story concept, is what undermines Insurrection. Nobody give a monkeys about a planet of 600 youthful looking, 300 year old Amish space-hippies. The Data story (he's trying to discover his inner child) is light, frothy and forgetable. The Picard romance goes nowhere (come-on guys, give the man some action!). Finally, the Star Trek does the Magnificent Seven plot, as the regular cast save the villagers, is unimaginative. Script-wise, much of the humour seems mis-placed...reducing Worf to a moody teen and Data to a life-raft. And there's an over-reliance on incomprehendable techno-speak again the Enterprise battles her foe and the power of the planets rings is explained.
The action's ok, but rarely exciting. The humour smirk-worth but rarely funny. Unlike Generations or The Final Frontier, its all makes sense. It's not a bad film, its just not very good either. If Twenieth Century Fox made Trek movies, this would be theirs. (Er, then again, I suspect it might be even worse!)
1 comment:
Insurrection is competently made and decently performed by the regulars. But - and it's a but as big as Oprah's - the story and script are utterly lame. Boring immortal space hippies living in their valley in southern California... er,um, I mean on their alien planet with their jealous offspring wanting to boot them off. I mean, who cares? Not me. Now there is the germ of an interesting story here with challenging themes and ethical dillemas (ethnic cleansing, government conspiracies, the greater good vs the rights of minorities etc.) but it's all done in such a lame, nice and bland fashion with some really dumb character work - Picard's love interest that goes nowhere, Data playing, Worf as a stroppy teen. Euchhh!
This film plays like one of the more average double episodes of the tv series. The noticable step down in fx doesn't help either. And don't get me started on the Son'a or what ever the hell they were called.
Nope, after the wonderful Trekgasm that was First Contact, Insurrection is utterly lacking in every department. But hey! At least it's not an actual painful kick in the fans nuts like Generations was.
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