TL;DR – There are some interesting ideas here and some fun action sequences, but it is held back by serious pacing issues that occurred when they crunched this into a movie.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this film.

Star Trek: Section 31 Review –

Well, if there is one series of Star Trek that always seemed to get brushed aside, it was Deep Space Nine, and while a lot of people have come around on it in recent years, even the other Star Trek production teams at the time didn’t truly understand it, which meant that up until maybe Lower Decks, we have never seen the impact of the show on the broader universe. Well, almost never. Because there was one part of the show that nearly everyone since has picked up and run with: Section 31. Which would be great if that was not the one bit of Deep Space Nine that I didn’t like. Well, if Star Trek is going to dabble in making movies again, and they are going to use Section 31 as the base, then headlining it with Michelle Yeoh absolutely should be the best way to start it off.   

So, to set the scene, Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) was the Terran Emperor of the Mirror Universe, brought into our Universe before being sent far into the future. There, she was unable to live, and she was sent back to a time that would be more stable for her by The Guardian of Forever [sometime in the early 2300s]. Here, Georgiou has been living under the guise of Madame du Franc at the space station Baraam. But there is an alien selling a bioweapon Godsend, and a Section 31 team led by Alok Sahar (Omari Hardwick) was sent into to neutralise Georgiou and take out the weapons dealer. But of course, it all goes wrong.  

Okay, so let’s start with what I liked. A lot of the characters were quite fun. Michelle Yeoh and Omari Hardwick have great chemistry together, which, given that they are the linchpins of the film, is fundamentally essential. Kacey Rohl was a lot of fun as Rachel Garrett, who got to embrace her chaos as the film went on. Finally, Sam Richardson was a blast, as Quasi was, and I wish he had gotten a bit more to do. We add to this a couple of solid action scenes on the Baraam and on the safehouse planet. You have Michelle Yeoh. Why wouldn’t you give her some hand-to-hand combat to do?

It felt like the film was knee-deep in references and had some deep cuts. Look, it is one of the Aliens from Star Trek Beyond pulling off a Fifth Element homage. That’s fun. I also liked that they shifted Section 31 at this time away from the Men-in-Black faceless men of what is to come and the all-powerful organisation of the Discovery era to being more like surgical strike operatives, such as what if the A-Team was crossed with Mission: Impossible but aiming in tone for something like The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Having it stuck down to four teams under the guise of the Federation makes sense, given it was almost completely wiped out a bit earlier.

However, and unfortunately, it is a big however, many issues plagued the film, and a lot of them came down to structure. Much like last year’s Moana 2, Section 31 started life as a series, or miniseries, before being crunched into a movie. Unfortunately, you can see this decision in almost every part of the film. The pacing is a disaster, the structure is hung together with these title cards that might as well have been cheap duct tape, and the ending, like many of the big reveals, is just a lacklustre disappointment. You can feel the film almost ripping itself apart in places because it does not have the structure to support itself. The less said about the time wasted on the dull safehouse planet, the better. Also, and I know this is just a me problem, but there was a musical cue that they used throughout the film that was the first half of the Borg theme, and it never resolves because it is not meant to be the Borg theme, and it ripped me out of the film every time it was played.      

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Section 31? Look, this is a hard one. Because there are some fun moments throughout, the cast is clearly trying, but this might be structurally one of the most frustrating films I have watched in an age. Have you watched Star Trek: Section 31? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. If you liked Star Trek: Section 31, we would recommend to you Star Trek: First Contact.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek: Section 31
Directed by – Olatunde Osunsanmi
Screenplay by – Craig Sweeny
Story by – Bo Yeon Kim & Erika Lippoldt
Based on – Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry & Star Trek Discovery by Bryan Fuller & Alex Kurtzman
Music by – Jeff Russo
Cinematography by – Glen Keenan
Edited by – Bartholomew Burcham
Production/Distribution Companies – Secret Hideout, Action This Day!, Roddenberry Entertainment, CBS Studios & Paramount+
Starring – Michelle Yeoh, Omari Hardwick, Kacey Rohl, Sam Richardson, Sven Ruygrok, Robert Kazinsky, Humberly González & James Hiroyuki Liao with Miku Martineau, Joe Pingue, James Huang, Nikita Kim, Cindy Goh, Houston Wong, Sonja Smits, Emily Mei, Augston Bitter, David Benjamin Tomlinson, Rif Hutton, Alisha Seaton, Jody Lambert, Melanie Minichino & Jamie Lee Curtis.
Rating – Australia: M; USA: PG-13