I have to admit that while Star Trek has always been somewhat campy, this aspect always ruined it for me when watching the show. It's just not my thing. I like my entertainment to be generally believable. While I certainly don't advocate that I'm totally convinced in their realism whenever I see lightsabers, at least in Star Wars I'm sufficiently enveloped into that universe because the aesthetics feel tangible. The re-imaged BSG was nicely edgy and I could completely relate to it. The early Trek movies had an environmental richness I could see myself stepping into through the screen.

While I don't feel that Insurrection was a bad movie, its occasional cornball theatrics reduced credibility for me. The discovery of a fountain of youth and the ethics of forced relocation of its founders to potentially help the rest of the universe? This is an ok plot for a regular one-hour episode, but for a big-screen release, the premise doesn't feel "large-scale" enough as a movie. We've already hashed that "needs of the many" theme a few movies ago.

I saw this film once in the theaters. I rarely watch this on DVD. While I find it generally tolerable as it had some good scenes, it also had some cheesy let-downs and so I only view it when I need to remind myself why I don't reach for this title. It's still better than, say, The Final Frontier...

It all starts on the homeworld of the Ba'ku who are, of course, indistinguishable from humans except by tricorder scan. At first I thought this was an Earth colony as the scene opened up, but I guess we're back to the ol' "aliens who look exactly like humans" thing again. Not even with stuff on the foreheads this time around.

Then we find out that the Federation is watching these folks from a duck blind. We also see cloaking technology used for field personnel. I guess the Treaty of Algeron only applies to ships.

So now we cut to the Enterprise. Worf conveniently meets up with his old crew. This seems to happen often with these Next Gen movies. A while later as he and the Captain are attempting to capture the malfunctioned Data, Picard decides on an unconventional tactic: distract Data by performing a sing-a-long on a production number Data was reviewing before he left the Enterprise for the duck-blind mission. Was this move really necessary? It just opened up the can of cheese big time. Then to add insult to injury, Worf has to sing along by reading this:

Karaoke? Seriously? I was thinking of throwing popcorn at the screen in disgust.

We see a cool flight scene with the shuttle latching onto Data's scoutship which leads to a downwards spiral to the surface. But we all know that no one's going to die. Remember, this is Star Trek where graphic violence in such manner can't ever happen to the good guys so early in the game. At the last possible moment, the shuttle is able to gain control of the situation just a few feet off the ground. I love saved-at-the-last-second thrill rides like anyone else, but we all saw this one coming a mile away. Everything just works better when you go to manual control:

Cool scene, although predictable.

Later on when Picard, Data, and Anij discover the holoship and are discussing theories as to its existence, an off-screen Son'a shoots at them but misses by a wide margin even though his targets were just standing there absorbed in their discussion. Son'a marksmanship apparently leaves something to be desired. And of course, he as a token bad guy is absolutely incapable of taking cover so he naturally stands out in the open where Data and Picard can pin him down effortlessly.

It's kind of amusing to see how the phaser emitters don't line up with the actual beam.

Then we find out that Data has floatation bags which allow others to hang onto him during "water landings" (as if they're still going to be using this euphemism in the 24th century). Huh? So he has airline safety devices now? Where's my complimentary peanuts?

Picard listens to mambo in his quarters and starts gettin' down wit' it. C'mon, we know that everyone's being affected by the youthful regenerative side effects of the planet's metaphasic radiation, but this is just unnecessary.

At this point in the movie I'm thinking whether matinee pricing was worth it.

Then we have this line: "Saddle up - lock and load!" This is where I face-palm. Oh, please... Cheesy doesn't begin to describe it. Who writes this stuff, really?

Look - a hummingbird on a planet far away from Earth. What an amazing coincidence...

While the "wings swept down and forward" look is pretty cool, this is also kind of over-used in the Trek universe, unless the Son'a stole the Klingon Bird of Preys' idea.

I'm also unconvinced in how slow the little flying Son'a probes with the isolinear tags were in tagging the planet's residences. Everyone was pretty much out in the open. Do these things not have fully-automatic firing operation? Can they only shoot one tag every minute?

Speaking of automatic weapons, how come phaser rifles only seem to operate in semi-automatic fashion? Is this by choice, personnel training, or limitation of the rifle design due to power recharge requirements per shot, etc.? In any case, it'd raise the credibility if we occasionally see someone trailing a Son'a probe with multiple shot bursts. The fact that 99% of all Starfleet phaser shots hit their target in one try ... well, you know where I'm going with that.

Don't you love the convenience when they fire phasers into walls of rock and a nice clean round opening is created? Wow, the miracles of modern technology.

During the course of battle between the Enterprise and Son'a ships, Riker calls for the "manual steering column" which looks exactly like any current-day gaming joystick. Is there something that this "steering column" provides that the regular controls cannot? If it breaks, can the Enterprise just run by Fry's Electronics and grab a replacement?

Here's something new - a Starfleet bazooka!

Of course, like a lot of other Starfleet-issued weapons, it comes in tactical-silver so enemy forces can see you from a kilometer away. This just wreaks of the whole, "Ooo - shiny shiny" syndrome. Contemporary combat weapons in the field are in practice much more discreet for a good reason.

A little later on, we have this face-off between the Son'a probes and the hero team, complete with the long-pause between them before they start shooting as if we're watching a western. Yeah, right. Of course this would happen in real-life.

Oh look, more humans with stuff on their heads:

I've always found it amazing how adaptive Starfleet officers are. They always seem to be able to figure out alien control panels with weird symbols.

And finally here we have Data exploring his inner-child.

As far as I'm concerned, Insurrection is a kids movie. It's classic Trek in the sense that it includes the usual "fun" cornball tactics, but this is not passing my grading meter these days. A lot of the humor didn't work for me. I need some more realism. The universe isn't so goofball. The only thing missing from this movie was Jar Jar Binks and some Ewoks running in the background.