Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

THE BALD AND THE BEAUTIFUL Picard (Stewart) and Shinzon (Hardy) take a shine to each other

As a movie villain, the hissy-fit fascist will never go entirely out of style. In Star Trek: Nemesis, Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) comes face to face with his not-so-duplicate clone, a sniveling neurotic despot who is deeply ambivalent about the beauty of women. Shinzon (Tom Hardy), leader of the Romulans, is shiny-bald, with a saddened glower of thick-lipped resentment. Unlike Picard, whose hawk eyes glitter with purpose, the clone, arranging his features into an evil pout, looks as if he'd rather be hanging out in a leather bar with Pinhead from the ''Hellraiser'' movies.

For no good reason, Data (Brent Spiner), the cuddly android who's like Mr. Spock played by John Ritter, meets a clone of himself as well. But then, it's no great surprise that ''Star Trek: Nemesis'' is a little bit obsessed with replication. The question that hangs over the movie is, How will the curators of the Roddenberry empire ever launch the next generation? They needn't fret. As lo-fi as the special effects are, the folks who cobbled ''Nemesis'' together indulge the force of humanity over hardware in a way that George Lucas has long forgotten.