Review: Star Trek: Section 31
It’s a Dirty Job but, Goddammit, Nobody Here Knows How to Do It
At the risk of repeating a theme I’ve been invoking too often, I was really looking forward to Star Trek: Section 31. It’s the first Trek feature film we’ve gotten in nine years – albeit a telefilm birthed when the mighty brain trust at Paramount decided the concept wasn’t going to make it as a series – and it’s devoted to an intriguing little corner of the Trek universe: A covert, black-ops division within Starfleet whose members are willing to get their hands dirty so that the rest of the organization can get on with their species-positive business without having their haloes disturbed. With Michelle Yeoh repeating her role as the morally ambiguous, former Mirror Universe empress Philippa Georgiou – impressed into Section 31 during the franchise’s first streaming series, Star Trek Discovery – I was excited to get a glimpse behind the dirty curtain, and see how those recruited into this dark operation function on a day-to-day basis, reconciling their actions with the high moral ground that those around them endeavor to maintain.
I’m still waiting. After a cringy prelude where we see how a very young Georgiou ruthlessly attained her position as Terran Empress (the Discovery rendition of the Mirror Universe is by far the worst of all the franchise’s versions), Star Trek: Section 31 picks up years after Georgiou has fled the division and has become... wait for it... you’ll never guess... the charismatic proprietor of an outer space cantina/nightclub/casino where all the species of the universe rub elbows (presuming they have elbows) and a blues singer croons millennia-old songs into a Lynchian illuminated microphone. (Imagine Shemekia Copeland entertaining us with tunes from ancient Mesopotamia.)
Instead of watching how Section 31 operates, we get a tired, Dirty Baker’s-Half-Dozen scenario, with Georgiou recruited into a ragtag band of operatives that includes a shape-shifter (Sam Richardson), a cyborg (Robert Kazinsky), a leader without any distinctive aptitudes that I can recall (Omari Hardwick), a Starfleet officer who apparently is there just to make sure that no one kills anyone (Kacey Rohl – everyone in Star Trek runs around with a phaser at their side, but the black ops members can’t kill. Brilliant), a Deltan (Humberly González) who doesn’t last long, and a Vulcan infested with a microscopic alien that looks like a parrot and talks like Lucky the Leprechaun (Sven Ruygrok). Their mission is to retrieve an apocalyptic Mirror Universe weapon before nefarious forces can use it to pave the way for a Terran Empire invasion of our own universe. Why the Terran Empire would want to bother with our universe once it’s been killed is beyond me.
I may be getting that last point wrong, but that’s the measure of what a godawful mess Star Trek: Section 31 is. Let me be clear: It’s not just bad Trek, it’s bad film. It’s a train wreck where the train is carrying a load of Cybertrucks. It’s like what would happen if Michael Bay threw up Zack Snyder. If there’s a desolate subsector of our reality where the likes of E.T.: The Video Game, the film version of Cats, and the Bee Gees’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band hang out, then Star Trek: Section 31 is keeping The Star Wars Holiday Special company.
Save for the acting, there may not be a single aspect of this production that isn’t inept. The funny parts aren’t funny, the action sequences are hilarious, the editing is nausea-inducing, and the fight scenes are poorly choreographed and shot with a cam so shaky that you’re left with the impression that there are earthquakes in deep space. Admittedly, there’s a particularly striking moment when the shapeshifter rescues a colleague by extending spider-like appendages within a tunnel, and some nice shots of a space-borne garbage scow scooping up debris with spindly, bolt-like yellow tractor beams, but that’s about it.
Nobody sets out to make a bad film. Director Olatunde Osunsanmi has logged considerable time on a number of series, including the likes of Sleepy Hollow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. With Star Trek: Section 31, it appears he got in over his head on something that probably from the jump was rife with conceptual second-guessing, corporate compromises, and maybe a few budget cuts.
The result is a work that instead of opening up a new branch of the Trek franchise, stands as a suitable candidate for Mystery Science Theater 3000. Star Trek’s vision of the future has drifted considerably from Gene Roddenberry’s overall optimistic one – and that doesn’t really bother me, things gotta change. But Star Trek: Section 31 gets it so wrong that the mind reels. It tries for a light, action-oriented tone more compatible with Star Wars, but falls flat in every way. It is, ignominiously, the worst offering in the Star Trek universe.
Okay…strike that one off the list.
Those critics who gave a negative review seem to have a bias. First of all, the viewership was very good (top 10). As for not feeling like Star Trek, Section 31 was the antithesis of Star Trek. That was the whole point.
Another criticism without merit was the lack of character development. Garrett's actions show why she later rose to captain. Georgiou's character was developed extensively on Discovery. More background was added in Section 31. Characters who were killed off needed less development.
Some criticized the plot as well. When the origin of the weapon went full circle back to Georgiou, I did not see that coming, and I doubt that many others saw it either. It was a twist that complicated the plot, as it went beyond destroying a dangerous weapon to the fallout from a prior relationship.
Switching from a planned streaming show to a movie also bothered some people. However, that change was not unique. The Mandalorian went from a show to a movie due to delays. Perhaps that affected Section 31 as well.