Star Trek: Insurrection

Will Menaker2.5

The one in which Picard and crew foment a revolt against the legitimate authority of The Federation on behalf of a colony of reactionary, all-white settlers.The most right wing Star Trek by far. Flagrantly goes against the primary ethical maxim of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." In this case, the "good guys" who Picard helps are a Space Rhodesia of only 600 people hoarding the secret to immortality for themselves and the "bad guys" are a group of people who rebelled against the trad-morality and isolationist ignorance of their colony and became decadent through contact with the outside world. They are coded as such because they're addicted to plastic surgery and a need for health care. Picard weighs the needs of preserving the perfect organic, cottage core aesthetics of a few hundred against curing all disease and the ravages of aging for every sentient being in The Federation and finds the needs of the many lacking. Picard also gets in touch with his French heritage, by getting on his Macron shit by being horny for a 300 year old woman.Giving this an extra half star for my boy Jonathan Frakes and the scene where Data sings Gilbert and Sullivan.

Branson Reese

Something I've found chilling about watching all of the Star Trek movies is how closely my own opinions on them seem to align with the consensus takes. A death blow for the credibility of an enfant terrible of the Star Trek movies letterboxd review world such as myself. Thank god in all of Her(!) grace that we finally made it to Insurrection, a movie I think is probably about as good as First Contact, shattering the stale and oppressive opinions of the letterboxd tastemaker machine who suffocate us all.I think I said earlier that this movie should've been a Deep Space Nine movie. I stand by that. It should've been. I'm told that many nerds agree with me on this, but if the success of my D&D podcast is any indication, nerds are occasionally right. Obviously making this a DS9 movie would've been box office seppuku but it seems silly for me to draw an arbitrary line in the sand of my own fantasy. If I'm imagining a world where I get to dictate terms to Paramount, why not go one step further and imagine a world where moviegoers are helpless to Quark and Odo's charms? But instead reality gave us this. And because I'm not a rich kid who whines all the time (I'm a middle class kid who gripes fairly at the exact right times) I'll soldier on and make the best of a suboptimal situation by enjoying a movie I liked. Not since Christ on Her(!) cross...We open with a cool chase scene that seems inspired by paranoid schizophrenia. Data has gone haywire and is running through one of the nine thousand idyllic Northern California planets that seem to exist in the world of Star Trek, hounded by Tron guys. All of them are completely invisible to the noble M. Night Shyamalan's The Village peasants with symmetrical faces, making for a novel opening. I would've liked an entire movie of Manchurian CandiData, but then we might've lost his Gilbert & Sullivan rescue; perhaps the dorkiest series of sounds and images ever committed to screen. It contributes to this movie's greatest strength, even if that strength is at odds with the plot itself: this movie is all good vibes, all the time. If you were plot-blind like, say, Judd Apatow you could be forgiven for thinking this was the TNG Voyage Home. Everybody's feeling each other. Picard's dancing to mambo, Geordi's taking in sunsets, and perhaps the most prominent subplot is that Riker and Troi are getting it on. TNG lasted seven years and was four years off the air by the time this hit theaters but the whole movie feels like May of their senior year. Geordi's eyes healing is an especially moving sequence that only an actor as unironic and warm as Levar Burton could make work. I forgot to mention it in my First Contact review but I thought there was something very sweet and unguarded to Geordi getting contacts in First Contact after Malcom McDowell teased him about his visor in Generations. We can't all get these huge Data plot lines.There's no getting around the fact that this isn't an especially cinematic movie, but -well- who cares? It's technically a movie so it's automatically cinematic. My Dinner with Andre is cinematic if you're a pedant, which -judging by my comments section- a healthy chunk of you are. Frakes isn't here to blow your mind, he's just here to show you a good time and maybe try out some of that slow-mo he would use a few years later on Clockstoppers. And he does. You're in good hands, here.Politically, this one's a mess. But that's what I've come to expect and even love from Star Trek. Sometimes they'll encounter a planet of conservative strawmen and knock them down with logic and reason, but more often they'll come up against actual dilemmas that resemble real-world conflicts with a sci-fi get of jail free card that allow them to talk about their ideals before either threading the needle at the last minute or failing nobly. The more Star Trek you watch the more you notice it has in common with Law & Order. F. Murray Abraham plays an alien from a race based on the facelift scene from Brazil and I wish he had been given a little more to do so he could've made his case better. This movie seems to think it's anti-imperialist and maybe it is or maybe it isn't. But compared to every single CIA funded Marvel movie this is Come And See.So yeah, maybe it's a bit confused and forgettable. But due to a pretty bad drinking problem I've been confused and forgotten some wonderful times myself.

Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine2.5

RESEÑA EN ESPAÑOL AQUIFUERA DE SERIE: THE FINAL FRONTIERAfter one of the darkest entries in the franchise, we follow this up with one of its most lighthearted, where we finally get to see Picard smiling, joking around, and having a really good time as he and his team try to save a paradise land — blessed with a form of radiation that regenerates aging flesh — from an evil race of humanoids who are currently in decay and could use some of that radiation themselves.The film is full of logic holes, starting with its entire premise: it becomes very clear the people in this paradise could've helped these humanoids without needing to fight. As some have mentioned here, they could have just established a colony on this planet, and everything points to the people being cool with it, so the whole conflict lacks any form of sense. The bad guy, nicely played by F. Murray Abraham, is okay and somewhat interesting on paper, but not that threatening, and, other than his look, kind of forgettable. I didn't find the comedy bits with Data that annoying, but the comedy in general was very hit and miss—I appreciated some of the levity, and it fits the story, so it's not that out of place.All in all, I can't say I was bored, as the film has some good moments, and some of the humor and interactions between the cast, along with the performances, are good enough to make for a decent time.FUERA DE SERIE: THE FINAL FRONTIERTODAY SCHEDULETrigger HappyAattamStar Trek: Insurrection