STAR TREK: INSURRECTION

• Starring Patrick Stewart, F. Murray Abraham and Anthony Zerbe
• Directed by Jonathan Frakes
• Rated PG, with strong violence; running time 103 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 5

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Dec. 11, 1998) -- Has an entertainment Phoenix ever risen so high from the ashes as Star Trek? Three decades after the original TV show was canceled, the ninth film version is upon us.

That said, it must also be stressed that Star Trek: Insurrection is a modest new entry, with just enough of the standard Trek formula to sustain longtime fans of the USS Enterprise and its crew.

Personally, I saw more creativity and pizzazz in the two-minute Star Wars trailer than in the 103 minutes of Star Trek: Insurrection that followed.

Insurrection is the third film in the series to feature the Next Generation crew -- with Patrick Stewart as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and Jonathan Frakes as his second in command. (Frakes also directs, as he did with 1996's Star Trek: First Contact.)

The best thing that can be said about the next generation is that Star Fleet has graduated a better class of actors than it had for the TV series. Frakes, LeVar Burton (playing Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher) and especially Stewart and Brent Spiner (as the android Data) improve upon the hammy theatrics of William Shatner and his co-horts (save Leonard Nimoy).

An impressive guest cast has also been assembled for this film -- Oscar-winner F. Murray Abraham, the distinctive character actor Anthony Zerbe (familiar to Geva Theatre audiences) and Broadway's Tony-winning Donna Murphy. The hokey formula screenplay, though, is beneath their standards.

In Insurrection, Picard and the Enterprise crew come to the defense of colonists called Ba'ku, living a utopian existence on an isolated planet. As the film opens, the Ba'ku are being studied by scientists and military observers from both the Federation, led by Admiral Dougherty (Zerbe), and their allies, the Son'a, led by Ru'afo (Abraham).

Picard arrives just in time to discover that devious Dougherty and Ru'afo now know the secret of the remote village -- it is bathed in a substance that's like a fountain of youth. They're plotting a takeover. Picard, of course, recognizes this as a violation of the Federation's Prime Directive (not to interfere with the development of other cultures).

So the film becomes a standard battle between Picard and the good guys and the nefarious Ru'afo and Dougherty.

In telling the tale, Frakes and writer Michael Piller inject a bit more than the normal light-hearted Star Trek banter, usually by making the normally stern Worf look silly. The best moment finds Picard and Worf singing a Gilbert and Sullivan ditty to bring the distracted Data back to his senses.

The final reel, though, becomes an overly complicated mishmash of techno-babble that'll appeal to hard-core Trekkies but will leave others puzzled or bored.

Maybe it's the Star Trek curse: The odd-numbered movies are invariably inferior to such even-numbered installments as First Contact and The Wrath of Khan. In film No. 9, the formula continues to fly -- but only at sub-warp speed.