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| Enterprise faces a stronger, faster predator... |
THE PLOT
The Enterprise is en route to Betazed to celebrate Riker's long-overdue wedding to Deanna Troi. But the ship is diverted by a positronic signal that leads them to B4 (Brent Spiner), a much simpler prototype of Data. Immediately after retrieving B4, Picard receives a message from Starfleet, sending him to Romulus to meet with the new Praetor - the mysterious Shinzon (Tom Hardy), a Reman who distinguished himself in the Dominion War.
Picard is shocked when he meets the new Praetor. Shinzon is actually human - More than that, he's a clone of Picard himself, developed by one Romulan regime to replace Picard to infiltrate Starfleet. When that regime was toppled, the plan was abandoned and the young Shinzon was exiled to a labor camp to die, only to flourish with the aid of his Viceroy (Ron Perlman).
Shinzon claims to want peace between the Romulans and the Federation, and Picard badly wants to believe him. However, Geordi and Data soon find evidence that his ship is fitted with a weapon capable of destroying an entire planet, and that he planted B4 as a trap to gain access to the Enterprise's data banks. Now Picard's ship is all that stands in the way of Earth's destruction - and Picard is faced with the prospect not just of outmaneuvering an enemy, but of outwitting a younger, stronger version of himself!
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| A toast to absent friends. |
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Meeting Shinzon causes him to reflect on his youth. He talks with Dr. Crusher about the arrogant, impulsive young man he was, and in his conversations with Shinzon he urges the young man to aspire to more than what he is. Though some reviewers find the Picard/Shinzon scenes drag, I actually wish more was made of them. The notion that Shinzon and Picard are mirrors for each other, and that each can see in the other the potential for good or evil had their circumstances been different - That is an idea with real dramatic potential, and the too-few conversations between Patrick Stewart and Tom Hardy are in my opinion the movie's best scenes.
Riker: Has finally taken two major steps that he has resisted for far too long. He has accepted a promotion to captain, and after this mission will assume his own command. He has also finally married Counsellor Troi. A misstep of this film is that it doesn't focus on either. If Riker is leaving the Enterprise for his own command, we should see him demonstrating his command abilities. But when Picard transports over to Shinzon's ship, Riker is well away from the bridge, engaging in a fistfight with the Viceroy. When his new wife is psychically assaulted by Shinzon, Riker is little more than a spectator (We don't even observe him getting particularly upset!). As such, and despite him receiving a fair amount of screen time, this is actually Riker's weakest showing of the TNG movies.
Data: Is really the second lead of the film. When Shinzon kidnaps Picard around the midpoint, Data is the one who stages a rescue, something that's effectively repeated at the end of the film when Data sacrifices himself to destroy Shinzon's weapon. Brent Spiner is good as ever, and the Picard/Data interplay is very enjoyable in their scenes together... Though it should be said that there is nothing new here for Data, which is why I have so little to say about his characterization.
Troi: Shinzon is instantly fascinated with her, distracted enough at his first meeting with the Enterprise crew to muse about wanting to touch her hair. She is probably the first human woman he's ever seen, so his reactions do make sense - Though, as with the Picard/Shinzon dynamic, I wish more had been made of this. Shinzon and the Viceroy effectively mind-rape her in one of the most misjudged plot turns - Which does at least allow her a moment of revenge near the end, when she reverses that mental connection to give the Enterprise a brief tactical advantage. Credit to Marina Sirtis, who conveys Troi's mingled anger and satisfaction at turning the tables on her attackers to good effect.
Admiral Janeway: The "cameo of the week" is Kate Mulgrew's Janeway, now an admiral sending Picard out on assignments... Which yes, means that a man who has saved the Federation multiple times over is now outranked by a woman whose greatest accomplishment was managing to eventually find her way home after getting lost in space. I'm not a Janeway hater as a rule... But the difference in accomplishment between these two officers makes it utterly ridiculous that she should ever be in a position to give Picard orders!
Villain of the Week: Shinzon was created to be a replacement for Picard, and his artificially-accelerated growth has left him in need of a complete transfusion from Picard in order to stay alive. For Shinzon to live, his original must die. He is fiercely loyal to the Remans, who kept him alive after the Romulans exiled him to die. Similarly, he despises the Romulans, turning one ally (Dina Meyer) against him by his scorn of her. He insists to Picard that he's a dark mirror for the captain, but he's the one who seems most disturbed at the glimpse of what he might have been. He's in the superior position in the battle - But when he holographically projects himself to demand surrender, he's the one backing away when Picard urges him to be more than he is.
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| Shinzon (Tom Hardy), in his element. |
THOUGHTS
My reviews of the Star Trek movies have been more or less in line with general fan consensus. I found The Wrath of Khan to be the best of the series, and The Final Frontier to be the worst. I labeled First Contact the best of the TNGmovies. I liked Generations well enough, but thought it could have been much better, and I found Insurrection to be underwhelming. None of these are opinions greatly out of step with the norm.
Nemesis is the exception. While I agree this is a flawed film, one that could have been much better, I not only don't think it's bad - I quite enjoy it!
THE GOOD
"I'll show you my true nature, our nature. And as Earth dies, remember that I will always, forever be Shinzon of Remus, and my voice shall echo through time long after yours has faded to a dim memory!"
-Shinzon's final rejection of Picard
I've already mentioned how much I enjoy the scenes between Picard and Shinzon. The villain tries to rattle Picard by presenting himself as a mirror, and Picard is disturbed at the thought that he might have made Shinzon's choices in the same situation. However, while Picard is never tempted by Shinzon's darkness, Shinzon seems as if he might have been tempted by the genuine trust and friendship Picard offers. He laments that it's "too late" for him to make another choice, and circumstances do have him boxed in: His position as Praetor hinges on Romulan military support for a strike against the Federation, and his illness demands Picard's death. Remove either of these factors, and it doesn't seem impossible that Shinzon might have accepted the hand Picard offers him.
The choice of Stuart Baird as director, on the strength of his helming of the engaging Executive Decision, was largely a misjudgment. Baird's direction of dialogue-driven scenes is static, with nothing injecting energy save for the actors themselves. Still, it should be acknowledged that he's good with the action. Once the movie shifts focus to the space battle and the Enterprise begins taking serious damage, there's a sense of urgency that was entirely lacking in the action moments in Generations or Insurrection.
I also enjoyed some of the atmosphere. The scene in which Shinzon is revealed has the Enterprise crew walking into a darkness as literal as it is metaphorical. When Shinzon appears, he is the sole source of light, until he finally allows the light level to be raised. His ship hovers before the Enterprise like a shark preparing to devour a much smaller fish. Then there is the main battle, with the enemy ship a blur, constantly cloaking and decloaking, faster and stronger than anything else on this field of battle. All of this works, and makes for a much more suspenseful piece than might have been the case.
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| Data is bemused at finding a prototype of himself. |
A FAILURE TO ASPIRE
The B-4 is physically identical to me, although his neural pathways are not as advanced. But even if they were, he would not be me... I aspire, sir, to be better than I am. B-4 does not, nor does Shinzon."
-Data, on what separates him and Picard from their counterparts.
The irony about this quote is how well it describes the film's own shortcomings. Nemesis works as an action movie... But it doesn't aspire to be anything more than an action movie.
Part of that is Stuart Baird's direction. A stronger director would have pushed the ideas of identity and dualism (Picard/Shinzon, Data/B4), mirroring these ideas with the visual realization of scenes and choosing moments to cut between scenes to emphasize this aspect. Baird simply presents the scenes as written - Not a disastrous approach for the scenes that work, but not one that brings out more than (or even as much as) is on the page.
Then there are flat-out directorial misjudgments, most evident in the movie's infamous "dune buggy" chase.
Baird has actually bragged about this scene, taking full credit for transforming the recovery of B4 into an action sequence, so I have no problem assigning him full blame. It apparently never occurred to him that the scene made no sense, an action moment shoehorned into the early part of the movie for no reason other than to have one. But for some convenient Technobabble, the Enterprise crew could have and should have simply beamed B4 up from orbit and been on their way. This would have taken far less screen time and moved us quickly on to the main plot. Expanding this into a set piece slows down the start of the story and makes the movie feel aimless before it gets a chance to truly begin... The exact opposite of what an action set piece is meant to do!
(I'll add that I find the B4 subplot generally unnecessary, a distraction the movie would have been better off without - But again, a stronger director better able to parallel Data/B4 with Picard/Shinzon might have made something of it.)
Still, if Nemesis doesn't strive to be anything more than a Trek action picture, I do find that it works pretty well on that basis. Once the film gets past the idiotic dune buggy scene and into the story proper, most of what's there works. The potential exists for more - But that doesn't make bad what's actually there.
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| Star Trek's stupidest scene this side of the Uhura fan dance. |
OVERALL
I can't pretend Nemesis isn't flawed. At the same time, I'm not going to pretend that I didn't enjoy it. The battle that dominates the movie's second half is genuinely tense, with the Enterprise feeling truly outclassed throughout the combat. Star Trek Into Darkness, whose climax showed how too much action played too over-the-top can become boring, the handling of the conflict here feels right - enough to create a sense of urgency and hopelessness without becoming too much.
I'm not going to claim that this is a misunderstood classic due for re-evaluation; most of the charges levied at this picture have merit, and there are a few (some continuity points, for example) that I haven't touched on simply because I don't particularly care about them.
But for all its faults, it's a film I enjoy and I'm not about to pretend otherwise. Certainly a flawed picture - but very far, in my opinion, from the all-out disaster it's often made out to be.
Overall Rating: 6/10.
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