Star Trek: Insurrection stars Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Jonathan Frakes as Cmdr. William T. Riker, Brent Spiner as Lt. Cmdr. Data, LeVar Burton as Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge, Michael Dorn as Lt. Cmdr. Worf, Gates McFadden as Cmdr. Beverly Crusher, M.D., Marina Sirtis as Cmdr. Deanna Troi, Counselor, F. Murray Abraham as Ru'afo, Donna Murphy as Anij, and Anthony Zerbe as Admiral Matthew Dougherty.
Star Trek: Insurrection opens with Federation personnel on Ba'ku planet in a cloaked duckblind watching the Ba'ku people. Several members are walking among the Ba'ku in cloaked suits. All is well until Data goes berserk and removes his suit, revealing his presence. He shoots at the duckblind revealing its location. He escapes in a vessel and starts attacking the Son'a ships in orbit. Captain Picard hears about Data and proceeds to the Briar Patch, (what this part of space is called due to its impenetrable gas clouds). Admiral Dougherty, who is coordinating this mission with the Son'a tries to discourage Picard. Of course Picard is very loyal to his crew members and intervenes. He captures Data and finds out that Admiral Dougherty and Ru'afo, the Son'a leader plan to remove the Ba'ku from the planet. A clear violation of the, drum roll please, Prime Directive!
Star Trek: Insurrection suffers from what most of the Star Trek movies suffer from, retread material from television show plots. Give us something we haven't seen. After all Star Trek fans see these movies and they have seen every episode at least 5 times. Jonathan Frakes directed this film, so we get to see William T. Riker and Deanna Troi in a bathtub scene. For us it was a lot of bubbles, but for Jonathan Frakes it must have been better. There are a few romantic scenes as well as some tongue in cheek humor. This film, twice as long as a TV episode, does not involve as many crew members. We get glimpses of the crew, but no real involvement in the plot. Of course no Star Trek plot would be complete without a time warp mind fuck. This film does it in a different way, it uses the fountain of youth technique.
We take for granted that we will be seeing excellent graphics and wonderful ships in space, this film delivers here. It is not enough to make this a truly great film. Get some Scifi writers with unique story lines for the next film!
I give it 2 out of 5 Hummingbirds: