Star Trek: First Contact

"You're all astronauts on some sort of...star trek." 

Star Trek: First Contact is the best of the Next Generation cast films, with two parallel storylines and a genuinely frightening villain. It makes fantastic use of it's characters, especially Picard and his fight against his mortal enemy, The Borg. 

Captain Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) picks up a distress call from a ship under attack from the Borg, a vicious cybernetic collective that mindlessly assimilates other societies into the Borg. Starfleet specifically orders Picard to stand down though, feeling he would be an unpredictable element in the battle. Picard, with the full support of the crew, ignores the order and they respond to the distress call anyway. Picard uses his previous experience having been assimilated into the Borg to Starfleet's advantage and instructs the other ships where to fire to destroy the Borg ship. However, a part of the ship ejects moments below and uses it's advanced technology to travel back in time. Realizing what has happened, the Enterprise follows in hot pursuit. They discover that the Borg has traveled back to April 4th, 2063, the day before Zefram Cochran (played by James Cromwell) makes the first warp speed flight in human history, leading to the Human race's first contact with alien life, specifically the Vulcans. They realize the Borg intend to stop this from happening and proceed to assimilate all of Earth. Picard orders for the Enterprise to fire on and destroy the surviving Borg. Initially they appear to have succeeded, but it starts to become apparent that the Borg managed to beam over to the Enterprise undetected and begin to assimilate the crew. Picard has Commander Riker (played by Jonathan Frakes), Troi (played by Marina Sirtis) and Geordi (played by LeVar Burton) beam down to the surface to ensure Cochran's test flight goes as planned. Picard and the remaining crew remain on the Enterprise to battle the surviving Borg, including their Queen (played by Alice Krige), who kidnaps Data (played by Brent Spiner) in an effort to gain control over the ship's computers.

First Contact, unlike it's predecessor, very much ups that action quotient to the story and the film moves at a brisk pace because of it. Jonathan Frakes stepped into the director role for the film in addition to co-starring as Commander Riker and does a fantastic job of bringing a sense of cinematic grandeur to the film, something the previous film lacked at times. The script by Ronald D Moore and Brannon Braga delves head on into Picard's history with the Borg and how his time as an assimilated member of the collective still haunts him and drives his action throughout the film. Then they pair this with the time travel aspect and the character of Zefram Cochran, whose antics are largely played for comic relief but also have a certain dramatic weight to them as well as a man starting to crack under the pressure of the Enterprise crew's hero worship of him. The two plotlines work with one another nicely and intersect throughout the film, especially when Cochran's original co-pilot, Lily (played by Alfre Woodard) winds up on the Enterprise and finds herself partnered with the increasingly obsessed and irrational Picard, eventually becoming a voice of reason for him.   

The cast of the film is first rate with everyone giving strong performances. Patrick Stewart has the most to work with as Picard and his obsession with defeating the Borg and refusing to surrender to them and he plays it beautifully, portraying the rage that Picard feels. He does well in a more action oriented role as well as Picard goes into full on badass mode as the film goes on. Alfre Woodard does equally well as Lily, a 21st century person who the idea of Starships and the Borg are completely foreign to her, but manages to keep it together and go with the events that are happening nonetheless. James Cromwell is wonderful as Cochran and is clearly having a good time playing the part, and indeed reprised the role on an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise a few years later. Besides I can't help but love a guy who plays "Magic Carpet Ride" during his warp flight test. I also have to give props to Alice Krige as the seductively creepy Borg Queen. Her interactions with both Data and Picard made her a memorable villain for the film. 

There is one other cast member I have to mention here because I actually didn't realize he was in the movie until I watched it again last night, Adam Scott. Okay, so I am a huge fan of the comedy series Parks and Recreation. On that show, Adam Scott played adorkable nerd and love interest to series star Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope. One of Ben's favorite hobbies was writing Star Trek fan fiction, Next Generation no less, which at one point he even reads on the show. And then here he is, much earlier actually in a Star Trek movie and I couldn't help but bust a gut laughing, even though the scene is clearly meant to be quite serious. 

Overall, Star Trek: First Contact is without a doubt the best film of the Next Generation films with plenty of action, a fantastically nasty villain and just enough humor to keep everything from getting too bleak. It also has a great cast and strong direction from Jonathan Frakes, it was a giant leap forward from the previous film.