|
|
Film
|
|
Star Trek: Nemesis
The crew of The Enterprise returns to save the world from the latest intergalactic villains and even find time to sing a few show tunes.
Friday, December 13, 2002
By Daniel Baig
|
There’s a postulate concerning the Star Trek movies: the odd ones are bad, the even good. Although this reviewer cannot wholly subscribe to this theory, liking both the first one (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) – in which he’s in a definite minority –, and the third (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock), as a whole, the concept does seem to hold water; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was far and away the worst of the pictures starring the original crew, the seventh one, Star Trek: Generations (at this point the Roman numerals in the titles were dropped, perhaps because the powers that be were aware of the “odd/even” theorem?) was a very mixed bag with a most disappointing denouement, and the ninth, the most recent one up until now, 1998’s Star Trek: Insurrection, was the least memorable in the entire series (just about all one can recall about the film is that it had an idiotic plot).
Well, the paradigm still holds, as the latest installment, Nemesis, is – well, take your pick – light years/several warp speeds/levels and levels of dilithium crystals better than the pitiful Insurrection. Which isn’t to say that it’s the equal of some of its predecessors. This reviewer has never been able to fully embrace the Next Generation gang as cinematic successors to Kirk & Co. Where James T., Spock, McCoy, Scotty et al were like a testy boys’ club (with Uhura as a sort of associate member), STtNG is more like a commune of gushy, tiresome New Age-ers. There’s far too much chuckling always going on when they’re interacting, as they endlessly amuse themselves with their “cute” eccentricities and bad jokes; they’re like a local newscast team in space.
That sort of wince-inducing tweeness is unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your affection for the series) on display again in Nemesis, scripted by John Logan. After a shockingly gruesome (by Star Trek standards) opening sequence which happens to echo, of all things, certain scenes/effects from the recent The Tuxedo, we find ourselves at the wedding reception for Commander Riker and Counselor Troi (and if those names mean nothing to you then Nemesis is probably not a flick you need to catch right now). Two thoughts strike one right away: one, considering how he basically has nothing but time on his hands as far as acting gigs go between Star Trek movies, you’d think Jonathan Frakes, who plays Riker, could have at least made an effort at getting into shape. As a groom, he’s roly-poly; as a second-in-command officer, he’s an embarrassment. And two, that is one astoundingly bad painted backdrop behind the wedding party, apparently meant to fool the audience into thinking the scene was shot outdoors.
Data (Brent Spiner, who also contributed to the story) gets up to sing. Yes, what sci-fi action film would be complete without show tunes sung in a high register, introduced with presumably intended-to-be-humorous remarks about “archaic music”? Klingon Worf (Michael Dorn), head in hands (he’s apparently suffering from one of the quickest-on setting hangovers in history – Romulan ale, don’t you know), loudly groans, “Irving Berlin!” Much of the theater audience delightedly laughed. This reviewer is, however, still mystified as to why it’s a funny line. It’s not even clear what Worf’s feelings about Irving Berlin are. One suspects the filmmakers just put it in there to show how clever and sophisticated they are.
Luckily, a nasty new villain soon materializes to create havoc before the rampant cutesiness gets any worse. (Similarly, the villain later thankfully interrupts a, gulp, lovemaking session between Riker and Troy during which one mostly admires her fortitude in holding up under all that weight bearing down on her.)
This new baddie, Shinzon, the titular nemesis, is played by young British actor Tom Hardy, wearing a prosthetic nose and chin so as to resemble . . . someone else. Hardy really livens up every scene he’s in – and there are a lot of those. He’s charismatic, sensuous even, and nicely enigmatic, and then duplicitous, in his early appearances, before he switches into standard Star Trek-villain raving-nutcase mode. He also gets to strut around in a way cool (if slightly fey) “I am the head of the bad guys” costume, black but coated with shimmering iridescent color, like the carapace of an exotic beetle. (Credit to costume designer Bob Ringwood, of Batman fame.) The outfit, however, is so tight that it’s a marvel Hardy was able to breath in it; it does seem to give him trouble walking. Then again, his character isn’t supposed to be in the best of health, so that might just be acting.
Shinzon’s right-hand, er, “man” – these guys look rather like a cross between an Orc and a Ferengi –, who has a Rasputin-like healing control over him, is played by Ron Perlman, who seems to specialize in parts requiring him to have his features totally obscured by layers of makeup – the Beast in the TV series Beauty and the Beast, a manimal in The Island of Dr. Moreau, and, next up, Hellboy! In fact, he was so disguised it took the end credits to reveal him.
Also quite impressive is that the filmmakers (the director was Stuart Baird, the director of photography Jeffrey Kimball, and the editor Dallas Puett) have managed to make the 5’11” actor appear no taller than the much shorter Patrick Stewart in the lead role of Captain Picard. Any boxes Stewart may have been standing on are nowhere in evidence.
Which is not to say that seams don’t show. The Enterprise in its Nemesis incarnation represents the most sadly obvious miniature work seen in any of the Star Trek films to date. Budget constraints seem to be showing here. One wonders if they also partially explain the rampant low lighting. We are, to be sure, told that the species, the Remans, who are the villains this time, have to stay in partial darkness because they are sensitive to light. However, this is hardly new for the Star Trek universe. The Klingons always seemed to prefer to maintain their ships in sepulchral gloom as well.
Curiously, the one outdoors sequence, a dune-buggy (or its 24th century equivalent) chase in a desert, is highly overexposed, bleaching everything out almost to white-and-sepia. Unfortunately, it’s not overexposed quite enough to disguise the fact that the bald man glimpsed driving the jeep-of-tomorrow in one shot is most definitely not Mr. Stewart.
The whole film leads up to a fairly exciting climactic starship battle (though the film seems to forget about the existence of one of the ships taking part in it after it gets a “wing” shorn off), which ends most dramatically. (Note the moment remarkably similar to one near the end of The Fellowship of the Ring.) If you are a Star Trek fan, you definitely don’t want to miss this, and neither do you want to wait too long, in case someone spoils the tragic surprise. Yes, one of the beloved main characters… meets his/her end.
| Of course, so did Mr. Spock at the end of The Wrath of Khan, and that didn’t stop him from popping up again in the next one. One learns to never say never in the Star Trek universe.
|
A bit off-putting is the fact that, though this one ill-fated individual is deeply mourned by the survivors, the other, anonymous crew members who go to a rather more unpleasant doom in this final battle seem to be pretty much forgotten about in the blink of an eye.
Still, how can you resist what’s ostensibly a sci-fi action movie in which the hero, in the midst of a desperate confrontation with the villain, starts a sentence to his adversary with, “If you have issues …”?
|
|
|
|
|
 Email
|
 Print
|
|
|
|
|
|