The “Star Trek: Section 31” Reviews Are In

Reviews for “Star Trek: Section 31,” the 90-minute direct-to-streaming movie spin-off of the franchise starring Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh, have arrived and the verdict is… not good.

The natural home of Star Trek has always been television. The films have generally been more “Star Wars” -lite action-adventure affairs that have varied considerably in quality. You get Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, Voyage Home, and First Contact on the high end. At the bottom end, you get Into Darkness, Insurrection, Final Frontier and Nemesis.

This first direct-to-streaming film in the series, and the first Trek film of any kind since 2016, started out as a spin-off series idea before being retooled in 2023 into a film.

It follows Yeoh’s Emperor Georgiou character from “Star Trek: Discovery” heading up her own team from Starfleet’s clandestine black ops division first introduced in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”. Unfortunately by the reaction so far, it looks likely to join those films at the franchise’s nadir.

The Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores haven’t been revealed yet, but the reviews all dropped a few minutes ago and outright slam the film as a mediocre action film and a worse ‘Star Trek’ one. Even ‘Discovery’ fans have seemingly not responded well to the marketing materials for the film. Here’s a sampling of reviews:

“What we get is a noisy affair in which the optimistic ethos and iconography of Trek are mostly jettisoned in favour of a grungy aesthetic and a bog-standard sci-fi plot… The obvious aim here is to make a grab for the Guardians of the Galaxy crowd, but neither the script nor the action sequences are nimble enough.” – David Brown, Radio Times

“Star Trek: Section 31 doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a serious exploration of the criminal underbelly, a camp throwback to the noughties, or a tonally off combination of the two? Whatever it is, it doesn’t work half as well as it should.” – David Opie, Total Film

“The screenplay struggles mightily to mine humor from the quirky characters with little success… Yeoh has such a commanding and darkly amusing screen presence that the pedestrian film can almost, but not quite, be forgiven for letting her down so completely.” – Frank Scheck, IGN

“Section 31 [feels] more like a game of Fortnite with Star Trek skins than a feature-length continuation of the beloved franchise… Section 31 is, at best, understood as proof that maybe ‘Spock’s Brain’ or ‘Shades of Grey’ or, heck, all of Discovery season five aren’t so bad after all.” – Joe George, Den of Geek

“Section 31 might actually be better if you come to it with no knowledge of Star Trek lore. This way, at least, you won’t end up wondering how writer Craig Sweeny and director Olatunde Osunsanmi completely bungled the entire Trek ethos. A lousy, uninteresting caper picture.” – Jordan Hoffman, IGN

“A movie that struggles to convey any kind of meaningful identity for itself, all while ignoring the one it could establish with the wider Star Trek franchise, regardless of whether or not it ultimately stood in contrast or in resemblance to it.” – James Whitbrook, Gizmodo

“If it sometimes feels a bit hollow, well, not every Star Trek story has to have profound commentary on what it means to be human. I know how great Star Trek can be, and I would be lying if I said Section 31 didn’t leave me a bit disappointed.” – Tessa Swehla, The Wrap

“Section 31 isn’t boldly going where we haven’t been before; it’s a rote, lazy, incurious mess too afraid to risk anything by challenging its audience at a time when we may need Star Trek‘s progressive humanism more than ever” – Rachel Hulshult, Screen Rant

“On one hand, it’s so woven into the labyrinthine mythology of the venerable franchise’s 59-year history as to be impenetrable to anyone not steeped in its minutiae. On the other, its cynical tonal shift and negligible engagement with the aspirational elements of “Star Trek” will leave longtime fans scratching their heads — if not outright alienated.” – Michael Rosch, AIPT

Those who don’t care what the “Star Trek: Section 31” reviews say, you can make up your own mind and watch the film itself, which is launching on the Paramount+ service this Friday at 3am US-ET.

The post The “Star Trek: Section 31” Reviews Are In appeared first on Dark Horizons.