Written by: John Logan
Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Tom Hardy
Rating: [3/5]
Picking up a film within a large franchise and having no idea whatsoever what anything means ensures plenty of confusion will be had. Especially something so dense and lore-driven as Star Trek. However, these heeds I did ignore and jumped into Star Trek: Nemesis anyway. From all that could be ascertained from the film, it makes for a decent viewing when giving us a show between two strong actors.
Following the wedding of Captain William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), the crew of the Starship Enterprise led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) head out to engage in a recent disturbance. Here they encounter the new leader of the Reman people named Praetor Shinzon (Tom Hardy), who has more of a connection to Picard than initially imagined and has some grand ideas for what he seeks to accomplish.
When I tell you I walked into this film knowing nothing about these characters, I literally had no knowledge of any of these characters other than I knew Patrick Stewart starred in the long-running show and the subsequent movies. Therefore, jumping right into this movie meant plenty of context clues needed to be picked up upon to get a feeling of the relationships between these characters and pretty much everything else going in the feature, and for the most part much of it could be followed along. Certainly a testament to this film. You may ask why I put myself in this position. Well, it was solely to watch an early Tom Hardy performance and it certainly did not let me down.
Serving as the villain of the feature, Hardy portrays Praetor Shinzon, who gets revealed as a clone of Picard to be used for political reasons and creates some large ambition for himself. Something he will not let fall by the wayside and demand to capitalize on any opportunity presented to him. That includes confronting the very man he was cloned from. Going way back into his filmography, it’s good to know the man has always loved doing some weird voices and does so in his portrayal of Praetor Shinzon. He pretty much does everything he can as a villain of the day for these mainstay characters and proved worth seeking this film out for.
When diving into the themes of this story, it certainly gets into the nature vs. nurture debate and what impacts the formation of one’s mind seen both between Picard and Praetor Shinzon along with the difference between Data (Brent Spiner) and B-4. The characters certainly have a distinct opinions on what they think of each of these iterations as one side consists of the real thing and the other serves as an artificial copy, which does not help when these copies act in some questionable ways. Heck, Praetor Shinzon wants to completely take everything over, so perhaps cloning did not represent the best idea overall. With this battle between the two sets of individuals, the one between Picard and Praetor Shinzon makes for a more captivating story and allows these two bald-headed guys to go right at each other making for some fun storytelling.
Having absolutely no experience with any Star Trek, I cannot compare how the film performs compared to what the series manages to accomplish but for the most part, this movie certainly brings a cinematic feel. This important trait typically trips up many famous shows attempting to take their story to the big screen. With the budget, they try to craft some sequences worth the price of admission so it moves just beyond the continuation of the story of these characters. The stakes feel quite big and I cannot imagine each Star Trek episode carrying them because that would make for quite a stressful show to watch.
While admittedly not having too much context for this movie compared to the wider scale of the Star Trek universe, I can speak on how Star Trek: Nemesis presents a more than competent story to take an outsider in and go on an adventure with these characters. It allows for many fun moments to transpire between these characters demonstrating they have definitely developed a rapport. The stakes prove huge and we get quite the villainous performance by Tom Hardy all culminating in something very watchable. Star Trek fans may disagree but that remains immaterial to how it played for me.
Films with Josh 
