3 Things We Liked, and 7 We Didn’t, AboutStar Trek: Section 31

Section 31had a bunch stacked up against it — not just asStar Trek‘s first streaming movie , butone controversially centeredaround one of the franchise’smost divisive concepts — even before reviews this workweek largelyslammed the film . But now that the motion picture is out , we can take a look at just where the film falls compressed … and where the flickers of possible lie that made its failure all the more frustrative .

The Chemistry of the Cast

disregardless of how you ultimately find about the toneSection 31goes for — which emphatically tilt hard into trying to be nerveless and cynically jokey a lot of the time — and perhaps even regardless of how threadbare most of the elemental cast is treat bySection 31‘s script , Section 31has a truly compelling plaster cast trying to do the estimable with what they get . Even though almost half of them get unceremoniously bumped off throughout the film leaving short time to flesh them out ( justice forStar Wars Outlaws ‘ Humberly Gonzalez as Melle the Deltan femme fatale , who gets to be a bit more fatale than she bargained for when she ’s disintegrated about five minutes in ) , what little ofSection 31‘s grapheme moments really work out tilt heavily on great operation more than anything else .

The (Rare) Moments It Actually Engaged WithStar Trek

For as much as the spacious swath of the movie barely even acknowledges it ’s set in the universe ofStar Trek , two members ofSection 31‘s crew do at least give the cinema a waver of potential , and a glimpse of what could ’ve been a more thoughtfulTrekmovie . The first is Kacey Rohl ’s Rachel Garrett , here a young Starfleet lieutenant years before she eventually ascend to the social rank of captain to helm theEnterprise - C as seen inTNG‘s “ Yesterday ’s Enterprise . ” put aside the specialty of having an prescribed Starfleet baby minder on the squad for a black ops organization that is think to be actively disavowed to even exist by the Federation , once the film gets over treat Garrett as a likely stick - in - the - clay getting in the way of letting everyone else do cool action stuff and get her be treated as an equal , there ’s a glimmer of getting to see what actually drives her as an ship’s officer that will eventually start the Federation ’s flagship .

The other gleaming is Omari Hardwick ’s Alok , the drawing card of the squad who quietly confesses to Georgiou at one full stop that like she , he is a man out of metre : a displaced old stager of the Eugenics Wars that ravage world inTrek‘s 20th C that was forcibly transformed into an Augment before being put on ice rink and awoken centuries afterwards . Alok is the accurate form of character that has a net ton of potential in a chronicle about Section 31 : a man fight back for a utopia he believe in , having endured terrors that paved the way for it , but coerce to do so from the shadows in an ethically compromise view because that same utopia detest what he represents . Alas , Section 31acknowledges this backstory for a single scene and then leave about it .

The Fabulous Stylings of Michelle Yeoh

Is this one an apology to make a“great gowns , beautiful gowns”joke ? Kind of . But as far asTrek - atomic number 39 sci - manner goes , Yeoh does get some really incredible spirit throughout the film , whether it ’s the gamey glam esthetic she adopts as the role of the proprietress of Baraam place , all high heels and glittering dresses , or her richly - shouldered , all - disgraceful look once she ’s back on board with Section 31 . There ’s some outstanding costuming across the panel that feel like it embracesStar Trek‘s weird and grand fashion sensibilities beyond the Starfleet aesthetic , but Yeoh definitely gets to sashay and stay here .

The Complete Lack of Engagement With What Section 31 Is…

From the minute it was announced , making a labor centered aroundSection 31was an fantastically risky , and intriguing , endeavour forStar Trekas a enfranchisement . Since the group was introduced inDeep Space Nine , what it mean forStar Trek‘s utopian vision has always been challenging . If a project potentially glamorizes what is essentially Starfleet ’s own super undercover warcrimes division , then you completely miss the point about what people have been interested in with Section 31 ( or hated it for ) for almost 30 years . But then a project that really manage with the aberrancy of Section 31 ’s existence , and how people inside and outside the organization look at it , runs the risk of make a photographic film about deeply , unsympathetically unpleasant masses , which is then much unvoiced to make a “ fun ” natural process picture show out of .

segment 31fails to rise to the challenge of its premise in the least interesting direction imaginable : it just does n’t ever think about Section 31 at all . For the minuscule striking free weight the picture place into the people its protagonists are ferment for , they might as well just be generic Starfleet officers on a deputation beyond Federation border ( somethingStar Trekdoes all the time ! ) , there is never any pushback on the fact that Section 31 is any unlike from the rest of Starfleet , and the film just finger all the more hollow for it . Even badStar Trekat least tries to engage with a sensation of curiosity , even if it falter in the instruction execution along the manner . Section 31just does n’t stress at all .

… Or the WiderStar TrekUniverse in General

WhileSection 31not grappling with the nominal establishment itself might fall into judging the movie for what it is not rather than what it is , its fundamental bankruptcy beyond that is that , for most of the time , the movie feels like it could be any humdrum sci - fi action film — rather than anything that is particularly interested in playing with the world of potential it finds itself in , being determine inStar Trek . There ’s terminology confound about here and there of course , and part of the joy ofStar Trekis that it should constantly force itself to try and do Modern things , butSection 31doesn’t feel like that : it just feel like it could n’t worry about beingStar Trekeither way .

It ’s absurd that this is the first live - actionTrekmaterial to explore the time period between the originalTrekmovies andTNG , the so - call “ Lost Era , ” and yet doesnothingwith it than consecrate a case the name of Rachel Garrett . It ’s laughable that the Mirror Universe recreate a all important part of the tale stab of the pic , yet muddies that conflict between what the Mirror Universe is in contrast to the prime reality in a nonsensical Macguffin - drive plot around a nebulously apocalyptic Judgement Day twist . Even small aesthetic details that could ’ve nestled the film in the optical lyric ofStar Trekdesign are mostly wasted here — either inDiscovery‘s re - imagining of classicTrekdesign trademark or even something more consanguine toStrange New World‘s retro - novel glide path . Section 31is just so uninterested in exploring anything about itself in depth that it ’s this sense that makes it feel less unlikeStar Trekthan anything “ new ” it does for the franchise .

The Incoherent Action

plane section 31sacrifices so much in the name of just being an action movie , then manages to biff that too . Not only is it in reality kind of activity brightness level — each divided “ turn ” of the motion-picture show essentially has one setpiece in it — what actionisthere is muddily get , either through restrictive edits that make them difficult to track or particular execution . Case in point , the first big free-for-all of the film , in which Georgiou battles a cryptic masked assassin who slip the dangerous gimmick Section 31 wanted to acquire on Baraam post , has an incredibly fun idea : both the assailant and Georgiou use engineering science to “ phase ” themselves out of sync with realness , so they are either protected from impairment or can pass through people and object freely .

A fighting in which the combatants are swapping between being in and out of phase as they battle both each other and the crowded environment around themshouldbe a coolheaded idea , butSection 31not only shoots and delete it untidily enough to make the current incoherent , it also shows the phase effect by fundamentally putting a blurry filter over the person that ’s currently out of stage … so you have one of the most beloved action sensation of her coevals in Michelle Yeoh , and youcan’t actually see her press all that well . That ’s just kind of emblematic of all the activity in the picture : any potentially nerveless idea , like pitting a scraps scow against a heavily armed ship , or a hover mine - cart chase , stimulate undercut in boring , messy execution .

Fuzz’s Whole Deal

Star Trekloves a draw of things , but two thing it loves almost more than anything else are big new melodic theme , and cool little monster . Fuzz , Sven Ryurgok ’s bizarro persona — an android Vulcan physical structure with aquestionableaccent choice fly by a micro - scaley , foul - mouthed upstart little alien flying around in a bantam bug ship — should be the incarnation of this , but he is both simultaneously too eldritch for the flick to just candy over exploring like it does the eternal rest of the characters , and yet also subject to its dullest takes on spy - fi tropes .

Pretty early on in the plastic film ’s 2nd act it gets ground that there ’s a mole among the squad , only for Fuzz to be scupper as said mole almost instantly — a blessing if only because the film otherwise bring off to hold out a XII ham actor - fisted telegraph that of all the potential candidate for the mol , the guy cable who repeatedly highlights how he can shroud anywhere and be inside anything as he flies his tiny bugship around is the most obvious one . And even if he seemingly induce what ’s coming to him by the remainder of the film , Section 31almost immediately undoes it in its last bit by bringing his Vulcan theatrical role back , only for it to be fly by Fuzz ’s alienated married woman . It ’s doing simultaneously too much and not enough .

The Rut It Puts Georgiou In

Yeoh’sDiscoverycharacter at least arrest the bulk of the character oeuvre inSection 31 , but really getting the clock time every other character in the plastic film is sacrificed for does n’t precisely mean that it ’s spentwell . The Philippa Georgiou we encounter inSection 31feels barely in sync with the character we go away behind inDiscovery‘s third season , one who had been hand the time to , controversially or otherwise for the former evil tyrant of the Cartoonishly Evil Alternate Universe , acquire and develop as a soul and at least come to terms with having exchange beyond being the tyrant she once was .

InSection 31 , not only is Georgiou squeeze back into the same premise she was put into after she first pull up stakes the Mirror Universe at the end ofDiscovery‘s first season , run a doubtfully above - board bar , her relationship with both her past times ( defend here in James Hiroyuki Liao ’s antagonist , San , a former lover from the grim competition that made Georgiou the Terran Empire ’s leader ) and to Section 31 is completely filed off . Some of that might be necessary for people who paradoxically did n’t want to ascertain that butdowant to check this movie about aDiscoverycharacter , butSection 31basically junks it all out of the metaphoric airlock , meaning that it just has nothing interesting or novel to actually say about Georgiou ’s fiber . It ’s not only a disappointing climax to her arc across nearly four years of television , it ’s a wastefulness of the one thingSection 31actually spend any enough amount of metre on .

The Pacing

part 31started out life as a TV serial when it was first announced , and you could feel the bones of a time of year of television system still somewhere in its final human body as a movie — whether that ’s the clunky mode the moving-picture show is sliced into three segment punctuate by on - screen title cards , or in the broader sense that the film is racing through what could ’ve been multiple episodes of premise in a show . It ’s constantly barricade and starting as the breaks are slammed for a trash dump of exposition , only for thing to quicken up again for a jounce of unsatisfying action , and as previously mentioned , the film is so utterly uninterested in exploring any of its possible ideas outside of the moment they ’re first invoked leads to a bizarre sentience where its simultaneously overstuff and empty .

That Unhinged Final Cameo

Section 31saves a baffling option for last in its epilogue , which catch up the surviving phallus of the squad on Baraam place after the day ’s been saved . There , Alok create a formal offer to Georgiou for her to return Section 31 , and they open up a comlink to receive their raw deputation from the grouping ’s handler , Control — now no longer the vicious AI fromDiscoveryseason two , thankfully , but an actual mortal … played by Jamie Lee Curtis with a chunk of her face covered up by a tech - greebled plate . It ’s such a weird cameo , not because of who Curtis is playing , but because it comes altogether out of nowhere — the identity of Control was not a mystery at any point in time in this pic — but because it ’s played almost incisively as “ Oh my god , it ’s this person you know ! ” instead of it being about the character or take in a real impact . Star Trekis no stranger to stunt cast ( see , arguably , Yeoh herself inDiscovery , telegraphing her captain ’s death from a mile off before the show premiered ) , but seldom does it lean on the stunt aspect in totality . It ’s a very off-the-wall moment to end what is at last a very outre movie .

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Section 31 Georgiou Alok Fight