STAR TREK: NEMESIS is the quintessential action-buff movie.
We start out at a meeting of the Romulan Senate, clearly intended to remind us of the Roman Senate many centuries ago (except that this is the 24th century). Unexpectedly, an implement reminding this reviewer suspiciously of a 21st-century computer mouse opens up, to reveal a green plasma-like substance resembling strands of human DNA at times. Virtually upon exposure to this substance, the entire Romulan Senate turns to stone as if all of its members had looked the mythical Medusa in the eye.
We then switch to a venue which we presume is the Enterprise (although we are never told precisely where we are). We are at the wedding reception held in honor of the new Mr. and Mrs. William T. Riker. For those unfamiliar with the Next Generation backstory, the newly-married Rikers had had a romantic relationship about two years prior to the beginning of the television series. When Will decided to focus on his career, he and Troi broke their relationship off while still remaining on friendly terms; they pursued relationships with other people, and eventually got back together romantically during STAR TREK: INSURRECTION.
While the Enterprise-E is on its way to Betazed (Troi's home planet) for a traditional Betazoid wedding, the crew finds itself hunting down a positronic signature strongly resembling that of the android which is third in the chain of command, Lt. Cmdr. Data. They go to the planet on which this positronic signal is found - which planet is on the Federation side of the Neutral Zone - and find a prototype of Data named B4 because it was constructed before Lt. Cmdr. Data.
B4 is eventually discovered and used by the new leader of the Romulan Empire, Shinzon, to gain crucial intelligence on the Federation. Shinzon, it seems, is a clone of Picard, designed to age very rapidly so that he eventually ends up looking just like Picard would, in order to provide the Romulan Empire with a "mole" within Federation space (but without Federation knowledge, as the Federation would be fooled into thinking Shinzon was really Picard).
The problem is that Shinzon is actually rapidly deteriorating due to a disease he "inherited" from Picard. There is no way his body is up to what he wants to do, so he decides to kidnap Picard, get an involuntarily-donated blood transfusion from Picard in a maneuver reminiscent of the modern-day Kidney Heist urban legend, and continue on to Earth to conquer our planet. If I say any more, I'll spoil the entire plot, but suffice it to say that B4 has to take over where Data, his android "brother," left off.
Frankly, NEMESIS reminded me too much of at least three other Star Trek movies. There is a maneuver strongly reminiscent of a similar move in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS, the first film in which the Next Generation cast appears. What Data does in this film reminds me strongly of the sacrifices Spock voluntarily makes in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN. (The battle between good and evil, which takes up much of the film, reminds me of the battle between Khan and Kirk and the damage inflicted by Khan upon the Enterprise-A in THE WRATH OF KHAN as well.) And the very brief appearance of Wil Wheaton, in what amounts to little more than a cameo at the beginning of the film (during the wedding reception), reminds me of a similar cameo during STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK. In the latter film, Grace Lee Whitney (the woman who played Yeoman Rand in the original series) shows up very briefly as the Enterprise-A pulls into spacedock, going right past the cafeteria's observation windows (and a horrified Grace Lee Whitney) as it does so.
It must also be noted that even the idea of a Romulan mole in Federation space is not at all unheard-of in the Next Generation universe. In a television episode entitled Data's Day, it is discovered that an alleged Vulcan ambassador (not related in any way to Spock) is actually a Romulan mole, designed to pump as many people as possible for as many Federation secrets as possible. As a trusted member of the Interstellar Service, this particular "Vulcan" wasn't exactly followed around by Federation Security, to put it mildly.
Because it seems as if the script writers didn't really come up with original ideas, I feel strongly that Trek fans will be disappointed, and won't feel as if they got their money's worth. It just seems too much as if there were too many elements of other Star Trek properties in this addition to the Star Trek canon. For that matter, the same time period - fifteen years - is brought into play in both NEMESIS and THE WRATH OF KHAN. NEMESIS is set fifteen years after the Next Generation crew is first brought together at Farpoint Station, and Khan comes back in THE WRATH OF KHAN fifteen years after he first appeared in the original series. (If you think about it, Star Trek: The Next Generation even debuted twenty years after Khan appeared on the original series in 1967!) This sort of cobbling together of different elements of the plots of several different movies is supposed to be limited to the James Bond movies, but it seems as if the Star Trek people at Paramount thought that if it would work for the James Bond production crew, it would work for them as well. In the words of Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World, NOT.
Even Ron Perlman, the Viceroy to Shinzon, doesn't get to do much different. He is buried in makeup as a Reman (the bastard cousins to the Romulans, who live on the dark side of Remus and get to do all the Romulans' grunt work when the Empire is at war), just as he was buried in makeup as the Beast in the live-action version of the Beauty and the Beast legend made for television. (Unfortunately, he comes into the plot of the film too late to get Troi out of that Pepto-Bismol pink wedding dress, although he does play some truly frightening mind games with her as the movie progresses.)
On the plus side, we do get to see a different species. As a Star Trek fan of long standing, I always wondered why there weren't Remans to balance the Romulans, and it was nice to see the producers come up with an idea which is long overdue. We also get to see Kathryn Janeway, the commanding officer of the Voyager, again. She has been promoted to the rank of Admiral, presumably as the result of her experiences trying to get Voyager back to Earth, and is the flag officer giving Picard his orders to go to the Neutral Zone after the Enterprise has already picked up B4.
In short, NEMESIS was a disappointment. The plot had potential, if the developers of the story (one of whom was Data himself, Brent Spiner) hadn't borrowed so heavily from other Star Trek movies. It's no wonder the theater was almost empty when we went to see this film.
If you're a Trek fan, you might still enjoy NEMESIS. However, since it's not the best of the entire franchise by a long shot, those unfamiliar with Trek conventions can safely skip it. I don't think there will be any more Trek films, though, despite the fact that they left themselves open for a sequel at the end should the box office be high enough for NEMESIS. This one just didn't live up to the Trek legend.
In STAR TREK: NEMESIS based on the STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION television series the USS Enterprise is gearing up for a challenging mission. While ...More at Family Video
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