Star Trek is one of the greatest pop culture franchises on the planet. It has been running for nearly 60 years, spanning more than 700 television episodes across ten series and thirteen—now fourteen—movies. It is a ubiquitous cultural touchstone that many people hold dear, this critic included. The beauty of the franchise is that it works as a framework for nearly any kind of story in any genre. We have seen Westerns, courtroom dramas, fantasy adventures, horror stories, musicals, and action movies, and they all work within the framework of a crew on a ship, exploring the galaxy and the furthest reaches of human potential. Now, in Star Trek: Section 31, the franchise returns to a genre it has had mixed success with: action.
Michelle Yeoh stars as the former Mirror Universe empress Phillipa Georgiou, who has settled into life as a space station night club owner. The space station in question, the Baraam, is located well outside of federation space and is—to borrow a phrase from a different franchise—a hive of scum and villainy. As the story opens, a team of covert misfit operatives working for Section 31, Star Fleet’s black ops organization, have arrived at the station to make contact with Georgiou. They want to enlist her help to find a bad guy and recover the item that will become the film’s MacGuffin. Things, of course, go wrong, and then she and the team have to find a way to work together to overcome the odds and save the galaxy from said bad guy.
Link: https://thatshelf.com/star-trek-section-31-review/
If it sounds like it’s laden with cliches and tropes, that’s because it is. That isn’t necessarily a problem if you have a compelling story, a few solid performances, and a film directed and edited for maximum impact. But friends, I am here to tell you that Star Trek: Section 31 is, at best, an incredibly mixed bag and mostly a mess.
Star Trek: Section 31 Review: Fun characters and dazzling tech aren’t enough to save this uneven entry | That Shelf
