Film Review
Resistance is futile! After a muddled transition to the big screen in
Star Trek: Generations (1994),
the new crew of the starship Enterprise finally came into their own in
this stunning effects extravaganza, arguably the best entry in the
series of
Star Trek films to
date. When Ridley Scott turned down the offer to direct the film,
Jonathan Frakes assumed the directing duties - his feature debut,
although he had already directed around a dozen episodes of
Star Trek: The Next Generation and
its various spin-offs, as well as playing one of the
ST:TNG principals, Commander
Riker. Despite his lack of experience (which shows mainly in his
laclustre direction of the actors), Frakes succeeds in delivering an
action-packed sci-fi spectacular that surpasses anything seen so far in
the
Star Trek series, in both
its scale and visual impact.
Star
Trek: First Contact was the best 30th anniversary present any
Star Trek fan could have hoped for.
Where the film particularly excels is in the quality of its special
effects. By the mid-1990s, digital effects had finally come of
age and
Star Trek: First Contact
embraces the digital revolution with an almost manic vigour. The
results are stunning, and still appear stunning more than a decade
after the film was made. It is hard to think of a science-fiction
film with a more spectacular opening shot - the camera pulling back
from a close-up on the iris of one of Picard's eyes to reveal the
captain to be standing in the Borg ship, and then pulling back further
to show the ship hanging forbiddingly in space, like an omen of
doom. And this isn't a one off. The film offers many
jaw-dropping effects sequences of this calibre, with computer generated
models that are so convincing you could swear they were solid physical
entities. Visually, the film has much the same impact that
Stanley Kubrick's
2001: A Space Odyssey had when
it came out in 1968 - it is a comparable game changer.
Of course, impressive visual effects do not, by themselves, make a
great film.
Star Trek: First
Contact owes as much of its appeal to its inventive story
concepts, which include one of the most successful ideas of the
ST:TNG series - the Borg, which
appeared in the popular fourth season episode
The Best of Both Worlds. The
Borg (who, by the way, are definitely not Swedish) not only make a
worthy adversary for the crew of the Enterprise - they are a kind of
conflation of every staple of the horror genre, part vampire, part
zombie, part body-snatcher - they are also an effective metaphor for
the dehumanising effect of technology on mankind. As we become
increasingly dependent on computers, iPhones, iPads, etc., can we be
sure that we are not gradually being assimilated into some kind of
collective machine consciousness, like the Borg? With the benefit
of a far bigger effects budget than the original television series
could ever have hoped for, the Borg have a terrifyingly real screen
presence, and are surely one of the most chilling sci-fi creations
ever.
This eighth
Star Trek film
has one weak point in common with its predecessor, which is that most
of the
ST:TNG regulars fail
to have much of an impact and are almost totally eclipsed by the guest
actors and the effects. Once again, Patrick Stewart and Brent
Spiner (respectively Picard and Data) get all the interesting stuff,
whilst the rest of the Enterprise crew are bundled into the background,
like children told to keep out of the way when an important guest comes
to dinner. Stewart is at his Shakespearean best as a kind of
hybrid of Henry V and Captain Ahab (happily quoting lines from
Melville's
Moby Dick) whilst
Data finally succumbs to the pleasures of the flesh as he falls under
the influence of a chillingly sexy Borg Queen (superbly portrayed by
Alice Krige). Alfre Woodard out-charismas most of the Enterprise
crew as a ballsy space urchin-cum-warp drive engineer, and James
Cromwell brings some badly needed reality to this portrayal of the
eccentric inventor Zefram Cochran.
Whilst the film is much darker in tone than most of the
Star Trek films, the screenwriters
managed to slip in a few well-judged humorous asides, making fun of the
wide discrepancy between Cochran's reputation as a noble benefactor of
mankind and the sordid hippy-style, self-interested reality. If
the writers had put just a little bit more effort into the
characterisation, and if Frakes had shown just a little more attention
to his actors, the film would have been flawless. As it is,
Star Trek: First Contact is an
exciting, visually rewarding space romp of the first rank - the best
thing so far in the entire
Star Trek
canon. You
will be
assimilated.
© James Travers 2012
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
As the Earth comes under attack from the Borg, a semi-organic,
semi-machine collective intent on assimilating all life, Captain
Jean-Luc Picard is instructed by the Federation to patrol the Neutral
Zone in the newly built Enterprise-E. Picard's superiors fear
that his previous encounter with the Borg could make him a
liability. However, Picard believes that this experience means
that he is best placed to defeat them, so he takes the Enterprise back
to Earth, to join in the attack on the Borg ship. Just before the
Enterprise destroys the Borg Cube, a sphere escapes and creates a
temporal vortex, through which it travels back in time to the mid-21st
century, just a few years after World War III. With humanity at
its most vulnerable, the Borg intend to change human history by
preventing a warp drive test flight that will allow man to make first
contact with another alien species. As Commander Riker leads an
expedition to Earth to ensure the warp drive's inventor Zefram Cochrane
succeeds in his historic endeavour, Picard wages war against the
Borg on his ship, assisted by Cochrane's assistant, Lily Sloane.
As Data is captured by the Borg Queen and given skin grafts that
provide him with his first sensual experiences, Picard and the Klingon
Commander Worf must perform a death-defying space walk on the hull of
the Enterprise to prevent the Borg from using the ship's deflector dish
to summon reinforcements. As the Borg begin to win the battle
aboard the Enterprise, Picard faces a terrible choice. Does he
destroy his ship or order his crew to fight to the last
man? This time, the Borg appear to be unstoppable...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.