I was totally dreading this one. And I wasn't wrong about literally everything to do with the dumb villian Shinzon. Literally everything about him from him being a young but still bald clone of Picard, his "plan" to destroy Earth so people will remember him, and whatever the hell the plan was supposed to be to have him replace the real Picard. Nothing about his character makes any damn sense and to make matters worse it is totally unclear why the apparently really powerful Remans follow him. It isn't like he has any special incite into Picard. I also don't get the part about B4 at all either. I guess it was smart to try and infiltrate the Enterprise with him, but how did they get the Enterprise to find him? They detect his positronic signature from light years away. Does this mean Data announces the location of the Enterprise for light years when they go anywhere? On the other hand this is the only TNG movie that seems to actually get the characters even a little. Picard isn't the psychopath he was in First Contact and Data isn't the jackass he has been in all the other TNG films. For once Worf is there to just be Worf instead of being the butt of all the jokes. And the end with Data sacrificing himself and Riker leaving to finally accept his first command seemed like a good ending to my favorite (for now) Trek series.
The movie begins with Shinzon backers attempting to form an alliance with the Romulan senate but when they are ignored they kill all the senators which means they run the Romulan Empire now (because the writers don't understand politics and that there would clearly be some generals or something not interested in following this human clone). Then we see Picard giving a toast at Riker and Troi's wedding and learn Riker is going to be leaving the ship for his first command. They head to Betazed to continue the celebration but detect a positronic signature and go to investigate, with their totally dumb new dune buggy. After one of the silliest action sequences in all of Trek they return with the parts of another Noonian android which Data activates and gives all his memories. Picard gets a call from Admiral Janeway that he is to head to Romulus to meet with the new leader Shinzon who has requested an envoy somehow knowing it would be Picard. In fact literally his entire "plan" depends on it.
They arrive and after being made to wait for hours for no apparent or ever explained reason they are beamed to the Scimitar, the Reman warship. Shinzon insists in a fancy reveal of the fact that he is a clone of Picard which is supposed to be significant or something. He gives them some of his blood to prove he is Picard and also reveal his huge weakness that is obvious to Crusher. He is an unstable clone and needs all of Picards blood. But that isn't discovered until just after it is important. B4 has been sneaking around the Enterprise computer but Data and Geordi figure it out. B4 gets beamed to the Scimitar as does Picard. Shinzon takes some of his blood but rather than going through with saving his own life he decides to mind rape Troi first and let Data who was pretending to be B4 rescue the captain. The two of them blast their way out in a small fighter but don't destroy or seriously damage the Scimitar for no good reason despite now knowing it is a super weapon capable of destroying all life on a planet.
Now they fight for a long time, some Romulans join on the side of the Enterprise but prove ineffective. The Enterprise takes massive damage and is forced to ram the Scimitar for some reason. Shinzon backs off and turns on the super weapon. Despite presumably still having shields and it being super dangerous Picard beams over alone for his action movie bit while Riker has a long fight below decks somewhere with the Reman second in command. Picard manages to kill Shinzon but instead of trying to turn off the super weapon about to kill everyone on his ship just kinda stands there until Data arrives and uses his microtransporter thing to beam him to safety before sacrificing himself to save the ship. Riker says good bye and leaves for his first command and the film ends with the crippled Enterprise undergoing repairs.
Review: Everything about the plot of this movie is just the dumbest thing ever. But it doesn't completely ruin the characters like the last few films and even moves the long running plot of the Romulans not being super villains forward. At the same time it is also probably the dumbest of all the Trek films and that is saying something.
3 out of 10
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