STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT - REVIEW


Finally free from the clutches of the iconic Original Series, Picard and co. finally got their own movie to play with and delivered this much better, much darker, much less gimmicky outing.

This time, we're introduced to the Borgs, a race of soulless, zombie-like drones capable of assimilating people completely. A popular race of bad guys in the series, their Hellraiser-style S&M look certainly begged for a movie! First Contact opens with Picard having a nightmare about the time he almost became a Borg forever and little by little, as the current Borg threat increases, he starts to crack up, feeling a responsibility to sort that problem out himself as he still has a slight connection to them but also wanting a kind of revenge, closure if you will, for what they did to him the first time around. The plot sees the crew of the Enterprise witness the Earth get completely assimilated by the Borgs so they go back in time before Earth made its "first contact" with alien life to make sure it goes smoothly and eventually save the Earth. Meanwhile, Data and, later, Picard get kidnapped by the Borg Queen, who tries to tempt both of them with that weird leather-wearing, half-robot lifestyle of hers.

There's a lot going on in this movie and most of it is pretty involving, which is certainly an improvement on Generations. The Earth-based stuff is a little unimaginative and feels somewhat more like a TV-worthy subplot than something that belongs on a full-blown movie. All the other stuff, however, is a lot of fun. Yes the Borgs can look pretty silly at times but after years and years of Klingons, Romulans, more Klingons, it's actually quite good to see a different bunch of intergalactic douchebags take center stage. There are some random, kinda awesome moments in this movie: you've got Data getting laid (gross), having skin grafted onto him (also gross), Picard going nuts in the holodeck (loltastic) and... as ever, Riker is about as useful as a two-headed giraffe.

Not much more to say about this one, really. It's just a solid, great-looking, very entertaining Star Trek movie and probably the best Next Generation outing to date. Though I have a slight preference for Nemesis these days... don't ask.

Resistance is futile.

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