At the opening of Star Trek: Insurrection, Data's microchips misfire causing him to behave in an unpredictable and offensive manner, not unlike a Compaq computer I purchased about a year ago. Although Data experiences some technical difficulties at the film's beginning, Paramount's Silicon Graphics supercomputers don't miss a beat. The special effects are dazzling and, as usual, the real stars of the show.

This is not to imply that there isn't some fine acting to be had in Insurrection. It goes without saying that Patrick Stewart (as Captain Jean-Luc Picard) and Brent Spiner (as Data) are spectacular. They always are. Moreover, the inclusion of the enormously gifted F. Murray Abraham, as Bad Guy #1 (Ru'afo), brings this latest installment of the Star Trek extravaganza up a notch or two.

As with the previous film, Star Trek: First Contact, Jonathan Frakes (better known as first officer Will Riker) assumes the mantle of director. Although Frakes proved himself with First Contact, I still worried if it wasn't going to feel like William Shatner all over again (who deftly proved that he's even worse at directing than he is at acting). My concerns quickly faded, however, Insurrection is a first class film that any Trekkie worth his or her salt should be proud to behold.

The movie's storyline revolves around a grotesque race of aliens named the Son'a who, with the complicity of a Star Fleet admiral (played by Anthony Zerbe), conspires to usurp a paradisiacal planet from the kinder, gentler species, the Ba'ku. (The Son'a look much like Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula; the Ba'ku look like TV spokespersons for men's and women's hair-care products.) Jean-Luc, of course, will have none of it, and boldly takes the plot where many Star Trek episodes have gone before. He gives the bad guys a swift kick in their alien behinds while teaching movie-goers everywhere a lesson or two in morality along the way.

Though the plot may not be anything new, the execution of Star Trek: Insurrection is well done in every sense of the phrase. There's tons of deftly handled humor (Data, as usual, steals the show here); there's enough suspense to leave a theater-full of popcorn chompers pausing on a kernel or two; there's romance (Jean-Luc falls for a 300 year-old babe who is miraculously better preserved than Cher); and last but not least, as mentioned before, there's enough special effects to either keep you thoroughly entertained or to cause you to experience a mild bout of epilepsy.

Of course, the film contains a few minor inconsistencies. For example, when the away team beams down to the planet's surface, they are stripped of weapons. Only moments later, they miraculously employ their laser guns to fend off some bad guys (must be those ankle holsters I heard about). Furthermore, there's more formula to a Star Trek movie than three generations of American babies could lap up in a century, from the sappy love story within a story to the final scene where Bad Guy #1 dukes it out with Good Guy #1.

Of course, this is Star Trek we're talking about here, the Science Fiction classic where high brow meets low brow, but you don't expect too much from the former. Put simply, Insurrection may be the best Sci-Fi any Earthling is going to witness in the 20th Century. Should you see it? Yes, make it so.