"Star Trek: Section 31" Review

There has always been a debate on Star Trek regarding its best and worst interpretations. In the realm of movies, there were debates over which Trek film was worst, ranging from The Motion Picture’s slow pacing to The Final Frontier’s absurd staging. However, I think Section 31 may bring the Trek fandom together to collectively confirm that the worst movie is Section 31, a project that could have been the worst Star Trek series.

Spinning off from Star Trek: Discovery, this pilot-turned-movie centers around what is essentially Starfleet CIA stopping a doomsday plot. Michelle Yeoh returns as Philippa Georgiou, the Mirror Universe emperor turned nightclub owner, in her timeline-traversing adventures. Section 31 agent Alok (Omari Hardwick) contacts Georgiou in her current timeline to collaborate with them in recovering a secret device. Her thirst for danger makes her take on the task with the aid of the Chameloid Quasi (Sam Richardson), the cyborg Zeph (Robert Kazinsky), the human Starfleet officer Rachel (Kacey Rohl), the seductive Deltan Melle (Humberly González), and the Vulcan-hijacking organism Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok). Georgiou’s investment in the mission turns personal when she realizes the doomsday device being sought is her own and is being utilized by her lost lover.

So little of this film feels like a Star Trek tale, as it becomes increasingly bland in its evocation of the most tired tropes with uninteresting characters. There’s the masked assassin, the criminal thief who gets tortured for information, a mole among the ensemble, and a mysterious murderer among their ranks. But what point is there in caring about any of this? For a film that takes its time to introduce each character, we know more about their abilities than their personalities. Several characters are reduced to heavy dialogue, and their banter comes off as limp, with Richardson giving too little and Ruygrok giving too much. How I pined for the usually funny Richardson to crack a good joke, and Ruygrok’s cartoonish goblin take on a Vulcan to shut up. This is also a separate universe with morally ambiguous characters we barely get to know. So what if they’re all doomed? If anything, watching this one-and-done adventure end bitterly might have made this a darker tale of sacrifice, rather than laying the groundwork for a show that will never be, even with a surprise celebrity cameo at the tail end.

Section 31 is Star Trek for people who never got Trek and read too many bad CIA novels. None of Trek’s hallmarks are present in a franchise known for its political questioning, exploration of the depths of human nature, and utopian ideals for the future. The lack of interest in exploring deeper themes makes this a mindless Star Trek spin-off, which could easily be retitled as a forgettable Netflix action flick. I know there tends to be much franchise fretting these days, as fans declare heresy for how many times studios return to the fandom to rebuild the wheel, but I doubt any Trek fan’s ideal film or show is a dull secret agent thriller that squanders Michelle Yeoh. It’s the most mindless of Star Trek, built less for extraordinary sci-fi storytelling and more for laser-action sequences.