Section 31 is a mediocre action movie, and an even worse Star Trek

Now there have been 14 Star Trek films over the past 50 years and yet the franchise has always had a bit of a reputation for cinematic struggle on the big screen. From the film sequels of the original show to the Kelvin Timeline reboot, Star Trek has always been pursued with the question of how to adapt a TV series that boasts of speaking diplomacy and meetings of scientific minds in a blockbuster medium that guarantees the show of sci-fi action. Can Star Trek always be Star Trek in such an environment? This week with the arrival of Section 31 on Paramount+another question is asked boldly instead: what if a Star Trek The film was neither interested in being one Star Trek movie or even be a particularly interesting action?

Section 31 has come a long way from being one of the the first teased TV spin-offs of Star TrekThe streaming era later Discoverythe first season of, before disappearing into the shadows and reborn years later as a film vehicle for now Oscar winner Michelle Yeoha bumpy ride very felt in its almost two hours of runtime. Starring Yeoh as her Discovery character Philipa Georgiou – the former emperor of Trek‘s alternate mirror universere-examined and partly redeemed on her time in the show before being sent to unknown times to live a new life – the film follows Georgiou as she is forced to cross paths with the agents of the holder. the Black Ops spy organization first introduced into Deep Space Nineand offered a place on a dangerous mission beyond the fringes of Federation space with ties to his bloody past.

That team consists of an eclectic mix of characters, led by Alok (Omari Hardwick); his right hand and strong arm, the mechsuit-wearing Zeph (Rob Kazinsky); Almost (Sam Richardson); Operator Deltan Melle (Humberly Gonzalez); wild card Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok); and his Starfleet supervisor Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl, playing a younger version of Tricia O’Neill’s captain). The company– Yes Next Generationof “Yesterday’s Enterprise”) who, alongside Yeoh, then spend the next few hours running, shooting and slithering their way through a galaxy-threatening plot. And that’s really the atmosphere Section 31: it’s a little less James Bond, and a little more Guardians of the Galaxy, if the last series forgot to keep any sense of sincerity that supports its strange mood. This could be good, if it were not a Star Trek movie titled Section 31– who is, so it is not good, and we will dig why later. But as a Star Trek movie titled Section 31he trades any inquisitiveness about his world and the organization for which it is called to instead wrap itself in a slick but ultimately hollow sci-fi aesthetic.

Section 31 he wants to deeply evoke to his audience that his heroes are cool, what they do is cool, and also that the way they are all atypical for what we expect. Star Trek heroes, they’re cooler for being that way. Garrett, as the only official Starfleet officer among them, has to ride this team line stuck in the mud – “Starfleet is here to make sure no one gets involved. assassination“, she snaps during her introductory scene, while she’s also curious enough to be one of the gang, which feels emblematic of one of the film’s fundamental failures. She’s so interested, even desperate, in communicating her quirky tone that forgets to ask anything remotely interesting about its premise, or the loaded intention behind its title as a film about Section 31 and its place in Star Trekthe universe

Not once does the film struggle the disputed inheritance of article 31 in Star Trek The story, nor does it ever really show its heroes treading a kind of moral line that would make them anything other than unbridled heroes: the most that is presented to the audience to hint at is that this is an unsanctioned entity by design is just. that the team’s mission is set outside the boundaries of Federation space, as if Star Trek he hasn’t sent his regular heroes across the border countless times before. Section 31 acting as if all this is bold and new for the franchise, while at the same time ignoring the reality of what could have made it at least interesting: examining what the people who live and breathe Section 31 really think of the organization and their place in the organization. the Federation, and what the cost of defending a utopia from destruction might enact to someone willing to eagerly bend those ideals.

If Star Trek is a series that prides itself on thinking big ideas and asking big questions, Section 31 is obsessed with the small, because it is easier to joke an abrasive joke than to deal with the complex ideas behind its namesake that the series has explored in the past. All this may sound like lambasting Section 31 to be a film that is not, and perhaps never was, but reflects a lack of curiosity throughout the film. His characters are tired beyond being presented as quirky and funny in a surface-level capacity – no matter how good the supporting cast are, anchored around a funny but still lackluster performance by Michelle Yeoh, as Georgiou gets most of the film’s character work. . Tick ​​off a series of tropes of the spy-fi genre, from betrayals to subterfuge and interrogations, but in a way that is less than actually playing with those tropes in Star TrekThe setting of the environment and even more to limit to point to them while it pops up. Its pacing is tiresome and jarring, moving from one moment to the next fast enough to never let the film catch up with its characters or the pace of the plot to have anything meaningful. to convey.

This lack of curiosity might be at least a little more forgivable if Section 31 it was at least a good action movie, but unfortunately it falters here as well. The handful of action sequences throughout have some interesting ideas, and yes, Yeoh revels in all of these sequences – there are plenty of shots, even when some of them drag a bit more than they’re necessarily welcome. But these interesting ideas are often undermined by lackluster cinematography and editing that often obscures the impact of that action, leaving it hollow.

All this is to say that this is not a case Section 31 be different from what is expected Star Trekand therefore bad for that. Instead, it’s just a movie that struggles to convey any kind of meaningful identity for itself, all while ignoring the one it could establish with the broadest. Star Trek frankness, regardless of whether it is ultimately in contrast or resemblance. A movie that comes in just under two hours probably shouldn’t feel like a slog, but Section 31 he does, without the show to dazzle the audience out of his work of anemic character, nor the thematic meat on his bones for them to sit and chew. Instead, beneath its skin-deep weirdness, the only thing lurking in the shadows here isn’t a secret, morally compromised spy group: it’s just a pretty dumb movie that’s milling about here instead.

Star Trek: Episode 31 begins streaming on Paramount+ this Friday, January 24.

Want more io9 news? Check when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Warsand Star Trek free, what is next for the DC Universe in film and TVand everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.