Now that the original cast of Star Trek has grown far too old to be whizzing around the universe, Paramount Studios has completed the transition of replacing them with a less geriatric cast. First Contact is the first Star Trek movie to consist entirely of members from the television series known as the Next Generation. It is a brisk, entertaining romp done in the traditional Hollywood style. However, if you expect the film to boldy go where no one’s gone before, you’re in for a disappointment. It’s just us humans fighting that good fight against the little green men, one more time.

Directed by Jonathan Frakes, who plays the ship’s first officer Will Riker, First Contact is delivered in what has become something of a standard in contemporary film-making, complete with dazzling effects and 2.5 explosions per minute. It includes the obligatory travel back into time, where the half-human, half-synthetic creatures known as the Borg have gone back to twenty-first century Earth to basically catch us with our pants down before our ray guns have become sophisticated enough to allow us to defend ourselves (the bastards!).

The Borg, a collection of drone-like beings, aim to conquer all and assimilate us into their slavish culture (not unlike how Viacom assimilated Paramount Studios into theirs a couple of years back). The fearless crew of the Enterprise pursues these rogue aliens across the galaxy and through time barriers (against Star Fleet orders, of course) to prevent the Borg’s conquest from succeeding. I don’t suppose it would ruin the film for you if I said that unlike Paramount Studios, the Entriprise proves that resistance is, in fact, not futile.

Dammit Spock!

On a positive note, not all is just laser beams and force fields until you’re space-sick in First Contact. The film does have it’s strong points. It is a successfully delivered edge-of-your-seat thriller. Few will be bored. And the quality of acting from the new crew is clearly superior to that of the old cast, particularly on the part of Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard) and Brent Spiner (the android Data) who are unquestionably at the top of their forms. (However, I must admit I did miss the occasional blathering such as "Dammit Spock!" and "I’m a doctor, dammit, not a trained thespian!" delivered with perfect over-emphasis by former member DeForest Kelly.)

Another standout is Alice Krige, who plays the evil Borg queen. This is where the movie’s biggest spark of creativity lives and breathes. Krige manages to be both grotesque and alluring all in the same body (which, as you’ve seen in the promos, gets connected to her head at the start of the story). Never before has a woman with blood vessels protruding from her frontal lobes managed to be so convincingly seductive.

Another one of the film’s attributes is its steady stream of humor. The jokes, which have become key to the Star Trek formula, are fairly fresh and provide us with well-needed distractions from the rest of the shoot-em-up proceedings. But the problem, once again, is formula. A play-it-safe canned plot works better for Paramount’s budget than it does for our sensibilities. There are those of us who long for something new. Watching the good ship Enterprise zipping across the universe to save us from evil aliens is starting to grow a wee bit tired. A surprise or two would be nice around this time next year when Star Trek: Second Contact hits the theaters.