Star Trek: The Next Generation, which over 178 episodes on television shone brightest of all Gene Roddenberry’s creations, here goes out with a whimper. The premise in what’s promised to be this Enterprise crew’s farewell appearance is that Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) has a clone who possesses a radiation weapon that can wipe out Earth. Praetor Shinzon (Tom Hardy) grew up on Romulus’s slave sister planet, Remus, but he’s gained control of the Romulan Senate and has that empire’s forces behind him. The catch is that Shinzon doesn’t really look, talk, or act like Jean-Luc — he’s a lot more like John de Lancie’s Q (who would have been a preferable opponent). More convincing is the Data prototype the crew find — of course, "B-4" looks just like Data because Brent Spiner plays both parts.

The twin metaphors get a little ponderous, but the real problem with Nemesis is that the actors, who over seven years developed actual characters and relationships, are given cameo roles — only Stewart and Spiner have any meat on their parts. Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) are finally getting married, but nothing is made of it. The numerous attempted homages to TV episodes (Troi’s mental rape; Data’s having a brother) come off more as desperation and lack of imagination, and not even Stewart can salvage "Like a thousand other commanders on a thousand other battlefields, I wait for the dawn." As for the action scenes, they draw all too obviously on everything from Star Wars to James Bond. TNG episodes like "Darmok," "The Royale," "Remember Me," and "Frame of Mind" were dense mini-movies; Nemesis is an inflated TV episode. There’s a poignancy about the end, but it doesn’t touch the end of the TV series. This is not a bad movie — it outdoes Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings — but it could have been so much more. (116 minutes)