Star Trek: Insurrection

The second solo chapter devoted to the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast is a surprising reprieve from their previous big-screen adventure, the boorish Borg drama First Contact. What lifts Insurrection above its predecessor is its tight, archetypal plot structure, its increased emotional resonance, and a heaping of cheesy humor that at times recalls the salad days of Kirk and Spock.

This time out, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (a more light-hearted Patrick Stewart) and the Enterprise crew must put a collar on the ship's android, Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner), who's malfunctioned and gone berserk while on assignment to study a technologically antiquated culture on a paradise lush planet. The planet, located in a hairy quadrant of the universe referred to as the "Briarpatch," turns out to be a fountain-of-youth of sorts that a creepy, facelift fanatical race of beings known as the Son'a (led by F. Murray Abraham) have designs on. In cahoots with an ambitious Federation admiral (Anthony Zerbe), they plan to usurp the planet from the peaceful Ba'ku and mine it for its most valued commodity. Picard, at his prime-directive best, arrives on the scene, takes moral issue with the San'a's self-serving objective, falls for a 300-year-old Ba'ku, and gets pulled into another deep-space conundrum. Insurrection is pure Star Trek hokum that wisely goes where it's gone before. At the Harbour Mall, Opera House, Showcase, Tri-Boro, and Woonsocket cinemas.

-- Tom Meek