Running time: 99 minutes
Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, F Murray Abraham
Rating 7 out of 10
Or Star Trek 9, if you're keeping count. It begins, as ever, in crisis. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) belts across space to the Ba'ku community, whose peaceful, rural lifestyle has been shattered by Commander Data (Brent Spiner) going berserk with his phaser. One crazed homage to Gilbert & Sullivan later (don't ask), and the android officer is cooling frazzled circuits, while Starfleet Admiral Dougherty (Anthony Zerbe) offers terse back-pats for timely intervention. But even as the Enterprise readies for departure, Picard detects the odour of proverbial rodent. Why are the Federation and their newfound Son'a allies - led by Ru'afo (F Murray Abraham) - monitoring the Ba'ku? Why has First Officer William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) scraped off his beard? What made the strictly regimented Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) oversleep - and where's that massive zit come from?
Star Trek always works best when exploring mythical themes, and so it proves, with director Frakes building his story against the classic pursuit of the elixir of life. But there's a feel-good buoyancy here elevating this movie above mere sci-fi, with liberal quantities of comedy, philosophy and romance - and, of course, perennial Trek trends - combined in an expertly paced and well-edited film.
