Star Trek: Insurrection

What’s the Story?

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) of the 24th-century starship Enterprise, receives an emergency summons to a remote, Eden-like planet to corral a member of his crew off on a mission. It's the intelligent android Data (Brent Spiner), gone beserk during some sort of secret surveillance of the planet's civilization, a small society of gentle, contented people who have renounced space travel and technology. Picard and the other crew members do some detective work and discover that behind Data's breakdown is an unethical deal between their commanders in Starfleet and some nasty local aliens to banish the innocent natives and exploit the planet's miraculous resources.

Is It Any Good?

STAR TREK: INSURRECTION seems uncommonly like a typical episode of the hit Star Trek: The Next Generation cast TV show, with the budget for special effects kicked up a notch, but otherwise a fairly routine escapade for the well-drawn, principled, and likeable space-traveling heroes. Early script drafts called for the famously bald Capt. Picard to find his hair growing back courtesy of alien rejuvenation, or Data getting killed. But these Very-Special-Episode gimmicks were ultimately excised, making Insurrection just an ordinary entry in an admittedly extraordinary and high-quality science-fiction franchise.

Even the big payoffs -- stalwart Picard revolts against an ignoble Starfleet and falls in love with an enticing alien -- carry little impact because much the same happened every week on the various TV shows (especially with Capt. Kirk at the helm). Conclusion: if your family loved the television program and considers the characters like old friends, enjoy the ride and the reunion, but don't expect the loftiness attained by earlier Trek theatrical features.