Star Trek: Nemesis

Trekkies Be Warned: for fear of self-combustion, it is advised that you leave this review now.

Continuation of the Star saga that began as a hammy sc-fi TV series, renowned for its wooden acting and cardboard sets, remains a mystery. Thanks to CGI, as perfected by Minority Report and George Lucas, special effectology has become the 21st century's art form. Why do the traditionalists on Planet Roddenberry insist on Dr Who style make-up and chemistry set experiments?

The acting has marginally improved, thanks to Patrick Stewart, who took over from William "The Oak" Shatner in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but the pomposity remains. When they speak to each other, you feel they are standing on invisible podiums, still dressed in Toy Town uniforms. The girls are as sexy as toast racks and the guys have a tendency to stare into the middle distance, even in a spaceship, where there is no middle distance. The baddies are proud to be freaks, which makes them more human.

The story requires a brain transplant. It's not complicated, so much as lost in the land of Loony. There is a planet called Weird People, where the youthful dictator/king/leader (Tom Hardy) is some kind of clone of Capt Picard (Stewart). If he doesn't genetically bond with the skipper of The Enterprise within the time it takes to rush out and buy a carton of pop rot from the foyer, he'll decompose like Nosferatu in the light of dawn. Naturally, Picard is not keen on this scheme and yet displays a sneaking sympathy for his "son".

The Weirdos have taken to a battle cruiser, filled with enough weapons of mass destruction to turn The Earth into the Gobi desert. Will the follically challenged skip sacrifice himself to save his clone and the world? Will the Mr Spock substitute (Brent Spiner) think up some alien alternative to incineration before The Bomb goes up?

There is another question, drifting on the ether: why doesn't anyone wear space suits, like that nice Mr Hanks in Apollo 13? Also, why does Picard's No 2 (Jonathan Frakes) make such a dull thud when he talks ? Perhaps, they want to bore the galaxy to death before an attractive villain breaks out of jail.