Star Trek: Insurrection

There's not much in the way of surprises in Jerry Goldsmith's fourth score for the Star Trek feature-film cycle (and second for the Next Generation incarnation), which isn't to say it's not a finely crafted piece of robust, action-adventure boilerplate. Unfortunately, the genre has come to rely on an orchestral palette that's about as subtle as a Klingon temper tantrum; divorced from its striking images and spectacular stunt sequences, it's often as inviting as Mahler on a Monday morning. Still, Goldsmith manages touches here that are as close to pastoral as the conventions allow, bookended by enough Wagnerian Sturm und Drang to push our Federation heroes on to victory once again. Goldsmith is responsible for some of the most inventive sci-fi and horror scores of the past 40 years (Planet of the Apes, the Omen trilogy, and The Twilight Zone among them), and the Trek cycle seems well enough entrenched for the producers to allow the composer at least as much adventure as they do the crew of the Enterprise. --Jerry McCulley