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Movie review: Star Trek: Nemesis

The long-awaited tenth film in the Star Trek movie series combines some of the best elements of the previous movies, along with elements of the Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series. If it seems a little too familiar at times, that’s really okay with me, because director Stuart Baird offers such a complete vision of everything great Star Trek can provide its viewers.

Reportedly, the studio asked Baird to trim the movie to keep it short enough for multiple showings on each screen. That would explain the extremely brief appearances by some supporting characters. Their roles still work fine, but I hope the DVD will include a restored director’s cut. Further, I hope Paramount won’t repeat the past gimmick of releasing this Star Trek movie on DVD, then releasing a “special edition” or whatever edition after Trek fans already bought or rented the first one. I absolutely hate that, but the other studios practice the same marketing technique.

Back to the movie itself. The actors all give perfect performances, with some of the regular characters showing new sides, or sides they rarely revealed before. The special effects, though frequent, never look like special effects. Everything looks completely real. The action scenes alternate nicely with the emotional ones, keeping the movie from becoming either boring or mindless. In fact, I would call this one of the most emotional and exciting films in the series. I would also call it one of the best.

Now, can Paramount please make a movie or mini-series of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?