Star Trek Sundays: "Insurrection" is a bad movie, but a decent episode of TV

Michael Pillar, the TNG MVP, does his best to make it work

It’s Sunday, and we’re going through all 13 theatrical STAR TREK films, a series that includes a number of pieces that have never appeared online before taken from my book 200 Reviews, available now in Paperback or on Kindle (which you should really consider buying, because it’s an awesome collection!). We continue today with the third Next Generation film, STAR TREK: INSURRECTION. Enjoy…

Star Trek: Insurrection

1998, Dir. Jonathan Frakes

Originally published in 200 Reviews, based on notes from 2022

“Can anyone remember when we used to be explorers?”

I feel you, Captain Picard. I’ve been wondering that for a while, wading through these terrible movies.

In fairness to Star Trek: Insurrection, I do think this is the best of the first three Next Generation films. It is extremely far from great, generally dull and full of very dumb humor, and since I am writing about it now, I can’t imagine why I might ever revisit the film in the future. But each of the first three Next Generation movies are, in essence, just extra-long episodes of the show, and Insurrection definitely comes closest to feeling like a halfway-decent episode of The Next Generation I wouldn’t automatically skip in re-runs.