Star Trek - First Contact (Special Collector's Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Easily the Best TNG Film
Review: While "Star Trek: First Contact" rewrites too much of the original TV series' history--a debilitating addiction the current production people can't seem to shake--it delivers a rollicking adventure that is more in keeping with Captain Kirk's episodes than any other "TNG" film. That's really good because on TV, talky Captain Picard and crew often seemed better suited for Monday morning board meetings than the intergalactic perils of space opera. In this one, a race of cybernauts called the Borg decide to revise Earth history by stopping the first human excursion with warp drive. Picard and crew follow the aliens back in time, meeting with a cynical, drunken inventor (a laconic James Cromwell) who revises their assessment of his place in history. Unlike the other TNG films, this one's plotted more like a film than a TV show, meaning that the pace is less likely to put you to sleep, even if Star Trek still can't quite escape cornball humor or pure cheese. (How many times does Data have to discover his humanity or Worf be told he's a warrior worthy of respect? Why do characters rely so often on a pregnant pause and one last line before exiting? Just how much technobabble can we really take?) The regular cast is as good as it's always been--which is to say, adequate--but Alice Krige stands out as the creepily sexy Borg queen and though she's frequently bug-eyed with excitement, Alfre Woodard deserves more screen time as Picard's potential love interest. The real stars here, though, are Jonathan Frakes as director, who seems to actually understand and respect the material he's working with, and Jerry Goldsmith, whose score is among the better in the series. When the humans meet up with a surprise alien race at the end, the moment might actually give you goosebumps.