This time it's the "Next Generation" who take to the silver screen in what I found to be a passable adventure film. Even for a "Star Trek" film, it starts of implausibly though with "Riker" and "Troi" getting married and having their first dance - but there was no "Lady in Red" or "I Will Always Love You"... we didn't even get Tammy Wynette singing "DIVORCE"... Cleary this film was going to be lacking in realism then... Anyway, shortly afterwards "Capt. Picard" (Patrick Stewart) and the crew head to "Romulus" for a summit only to find that Alan Dale and the entire senate have been assassinated and that Praetor "Shinzon" (Tom Hardy) is in charge of a very heavily armed warship. The two men meet and it is quite clear that the former has megalomaniacal tendencies that involve a personal relationship with our brave Captain. The story is not so hot, the plot - as ever with this strand of ST couldn't just have a straightforward action theme - phasers and photon torpedos at the ready. No, we had to have some dull familial sub-plots and the always annoying "Data" (Brent Spiner) finds himself a brother (think "C3PO" on the Cloud City above "Bespin"). Anyway, trust wains, tempers flare and the last twenty minutes are genuinely at the better end of ST moviedom - loads of pyrotechnics and hammy acting. Hardy does fine as the baddie (he was only 25) and the rest of the established cast turn up and go through the motions as usual. It benefits from less moralising and more action, and is perfectly watchable - if entirely forgettable afterwards.
