STAR TREK: INSURRECTION (1998)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
One of the reasons why the original STAR TREK series maintained its
popularity over the decades was in its dealing with im****tant issues.
The series was more than pure entertainment; in the episodes authors
dealt with social and political problems that are as relevant today as
they were four decades ago. World realities continued to affect STAR
TREK scripts even after the television series became successful film
franchise. One of the examples can be found in STAR TREK:
INSURRECTION, 1998 film directed by Jonathan Frakes.
The plot is set in Briar's Patch, section of the universe where one
planet is being inhabited by 600 people belonging to B'aku race. Their
world is primitive but utopian and local radiation also provides them
with immortality. Federation has decided to study B'akus and their
way of life, but during the expedition one of its members, Lt.
Commander Data (played by Brent Spiner) goes mad and reveals his
presence to B'akus. Captain Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) and
the rest of USS Enterprise crew arrive to planet in order to
investigate. They find that the expedition, supervised by Admiral
Daugherty (played by Anthony Zerbe), is actually controlled by
representatives of S'ona race and their leader. S'ona leader R'uafo
(played by F. Murray Abracham) wants to exploit planet's resources
and because of that B'akus have to be ejected from their homes. When
it turns out that Federation officials have breeched Prime Directive
and went with S'ona scheme, Picard decides to disobey his superiors
and save B'akus.
STAR TREK: INSURRECTION is one of the more "politically correct"
films of the series. Michael Pillar's script tries very hard to conform to
the leftist sentiments of 1990s Hollywood - perfect society that rejects
technology, materialism as embodiment of evil and cute little natives
being "ethnically cleansed" by ugly-looking imperialists. In Picard
and his crew who valiantly try to do the right thing viewers can find
scriptwriters' praise for Clinton who did similar thing for Muslims in
Bosnia (and would later repeat the same thing for Kosovo Albanians).
But explicit social commentaries aren't the thing viewers expect from
STAR TREK films. All this content is only a background of standard
science fiction adventure story and seriousness of the subject is
drowned with film's light-hearted tone. Because of rejuvenating
effects of radiation, familiar characters of STAR TREK: THE NEXT
GENERATION are behaving silly and it is entertaining to see such
adult characters like Riker (played by Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna
Troi (played by Marina Sirtis) acting like ***** teenagers. Because of
the humour film is entertaining and the fast pace guarantees that
audience won't notice too much plot flaws.
Direction by series' veteran Jonathan Frakes is very good, while the
acting by experienced crew is predictably good. The non-regular cast
fares slightly worse - talents of F. Murray Abraham are wasted under
the tons of bad make-up. Donna Murphy, on the other hand, is good
as Picard's love interest. Film's special effects are solid and Jerry
Goldsmith provides another good musical score.
Although this film is in its essence nothing more than a glorified
episode of TV series and although it represents a disappointment
compared with classic STAR TREK films, "trekkies" aren't the only
audience who could enjoy STAR TREK: INSUREECTION.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
Review written on June 13th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com
- Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org
- Online Film Critics Society
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X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1289537
X-RT-TitleID: 1085305
X-RT-AuthorID: 1307
X-RT-RatingText: 5/10
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