A Trekkie's Nemesis

This movie becomes, well, not much better, but at least more tolerable if you have not seen a) Spaceballs, b) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , or c) any SUV commercial. But even for those who haven't been privy to any of the above, upon which the entirety of the script of Star Trek Nemesis is based, the movie is so drearily predictable that every ten year old in the audience had spotted each possible obstacle in the Enterprise's way and figured out dozens of possible solutions before Patrick Stewart had turned his aging head.

Forget suspension of disbelief; watching Nemesis requires the utter annihilation of anything vaguely resembling a nagging doubt. Characters do stupid things that make the aforementioned ten year olds want to stand up, slap them in the face and shout, "No! Bad Star Fleet captain!" or "No! Bad evil genius!" Both the human body and spaceships exhibit incredible powers of resilience in conditions in which less fictional human bodies or spaceships would be dead or debris. To put it plainly, the plot has more holes than a minefield covered with swiss cheese. For one thing, you just can't expect any self-respecting Trekkie to believe that Kathryn Janeway of Voyager becomes an admiral before Picard. Please.

While voyaging on the Starship Enterprise, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Stewart) picks up a dismembered android that looks exactly like resident Enterprise nondismembered android Data (Brent Spiner). This android, however, is a much more primitive version of Data and incapable of explaining how he came to be dismembered on a foreign planet. Picard decides that copying all of Data's memories to a suspicious clone and then letting it wander around the ship unsupervised would be a really good idea (Slap!).

Meanwhile, the Romulans, whom the Federation (the good guys for the uninitiated) have engaged in sporadic fighting, have extended an offer of peace, and Star Fleet sends the Enterprise on a diplomatic mission alone into enemy territory (Slap!).

However, as the audience knows, the entire Romulan Senate has been assassinated by Shinzon (Tom Hardy), a human slave who lived among the Remun slaves in the mines of Romulus. This is where things start to go horribly wrong with the script. The Romulans created Shinzon from DNA mysteriously obtained from Picard many moons ago and were intending to replace Picard with Shinzon as a spy. How is never explained.

Other gaping plot holes (thusfar) are: 1) How did Shinzon get the entire Senate at once? Wouldn't some of them have been absent (sick, campaigning, etc.) when he set off his evil little killing device on the Senate Floor? 2) Why doesn't the Federation notice that the Senate no longer exists? Don't they have spies? 3) Why do some Romulan military commanders ally themselves with a former slave who clearly holds an unholy hatred for all things Romulan (Slap!)? 4) What about the rest of the planet? Why doesn't anybody care that the ruling power has been usurped?

Anyways, Shinzon ignores the fact that what he's done up until this point is logically impossible and continues with his dastardly plans, which he reveals to Picard at the first opportune moment (Slap!). Genetically there are two Picards and this universe ain't big enough for the both of them, so Shinzon plans to use Thaleron Radiation to wipe out humanity. But first, he needs the real Picard alive because he's come down with a bad case of the death and only a procedure using Picard will cure him. So Shinzon planted the android (remember the android?) on to that planet, knowing the Enterprise would pick it up, andprogrammed it to send him vital information about the Enterprise.

During several scenes, Hardy and Stewart are able to convey a sense of wariness and disgust at their counterpart that provides more dimension to their characters. The best of these scenes is a moment early in the movie when Shinzon is trying to convince Picard that he is truly interested in peace, becoming truly eloquent in the process. With more talk and less contrived action, the film may have transcended its many plot flaws.

However, some of Nemesis is completely unnecessary. Second-in-command William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and ship's counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) get married purely so that they can have a steamy sex scene without George Bush getting angry. Shinzon's Viceroy psychically freaks out Deanna for the purpose of allowing her to get back at him later (Slap!).

So much of Nemesis is borrowed that it's hard to discern who wrote the script- Mel Brooks or screenwriter John Logan. Every shoot ‘em up scene in tight corridors from Spaceballs is present, as well as several bits on a desert planet that look disturbingly like an ad campaign for Chevy. And of course the ending parallels every single Star Trek movie and episode ever made, in that something really big blows up.

In the end, Nemesis is decently acted, especially by Stewart and Spiner, who develops a brief, though very close relationship with his andriod "brother." The scenes between the two androids (both played by Spiner) are supposed to parallel the scenes between the two Picards, but are much more intriguing and emotionally compelling. If the movie had focused on them instead of Shinzon the Logically Deluded, things might have gone better.

Star Trek: Nemesis is 117 minutes long and rated PG-13 for space battle, violence, and some sexual content.