Star Trek: Nemesis

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is back on the bridge; round up the usual sidekicks. This time, the villain (Tom Hardy) is a bootleg Romulan clone of Picard himself. (Gee, how original: another we’re-not-so-different-you-and-I villain.) Besides casting an actor with no resemblance to Stewart but a shaved head, the film has plenty of problems. John Logan’s script hasn’t enough invention or suspense even for an hour-long episode of the series, Stuart Baird’s direction is leaden, and the look of the film is murky and dismal. Except for the stalwart, unchanging Stewart, all the regulars are beginning to show their age—even the android Data (Brent Spiner)—and are settling into the comfy joshing that made the first-generation movies (with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy et al) so dreary after a while.