Jonathan Frakes makes Star Trek: First Contact a tense, warmly played science-fiction adventure with a useful streak of horror. Patrick Stewart gives it weight, though newcomers must tolerate some hurried explanations and a crowded supporting cast.
Star Trek: First Contact is a gripping science-fiction adventure that knows how to make an invasion unpleasant. Jonathan Frakes directs and plays Riker, and his strongest decision is to give the Borg room to frighten us. The hopefulness associated with Star Trek survives, but it has something properly ugly to contend with here. Patrick Stewart makes the danger matter even when the time-travel complications threaten to occupy more attention than they deserve.
Stewart’s Picard comes to the conflict with lingering trauma, and the performance makes that history feel like a present difficulty. His authority remains persuasive even when his judgement becomes harder to accept. We were unsettled by the Borg’s intrusion into the Enterprise: their zombie-like menace makes the crew’s familiar competence seem suddenly inadequate. The writing is less convincing when it uses Picard’s distress to generate further conflict, and Stewart has to supply some of the understanding that the screenplay rushes past.
Matthew F. Leonetti’s photography is particularly effective in the shipboard horror, making the Enterprise feel confined without leaving the action unreadable. Herman F. Zimmerman’s production design helps us accept it as a working ship worth caring about, rather than just a supply of places for people to fight. The invasion gains force from that sense of somewhere habitable becoming unsafe. The resemblance to Alien is clear in the shipboard infiltration scenes, though the wider adventure has more room for humour.
Brent Spiner gives Data enough curiosity and comic precision to keep the questions about artificial intelligence from becoming a lecture. Alfre Woodard, as Lily Sloane, brings welcome directness to a film crowded with established characters. Alice Krige gives the Borg Queen a disquieting presence and avoids making the part merely pompous. There is wit in these performances, which is welcome when the plot has so much to explain.
Editors Anastasia Emmons and John W. Wheeler keep the switches between menace, action and comedy from feeling like interruptions. There is enough pace to carry us over the plot’s complications, though the time-travel explanations can ask for more attention than they repay. Jerry Goldsmith’s music gives the adventure warmth as well as urgency, helping the hopeful passages feel earned alongside the horror. His contribution matters because a uniformly grim version of this story would soon become wearing.
Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore’s screenplay is less generous to the wider crew. Too often an established name has to stand in for a character, with the film assuming that affection has arrived before the scene begins. That is comfortable enough for regular viewers, but newcomers have less reason to care about everyone sharing the danger. The comedy helps, and Frakes rarely lets the business of acknowledging familiar faces hold up the adventure for long.
Give it the 111 minutes, especially if science fiction that strays towards horror is your sort of evening. We recommend it warmly, with some patience for the franchise shorthand. Newcomers need not do homework, but they should be prepared to let a few familiar names pass without recognition.
