Star Trek: Section 31

Decent sets and quality special effects, not to mention a capable actress, in the form of Michelle Yeoh, can't make up for the glaring shortcomings in this latest Trek offering. The core script of "Section 31" has been done a thousand times before, in one form or another, which is not, in and of of itself, unforgivable. Regrettably, though, on this occasion, the story lacks direction, a semblance of credibility and simple logic. Yes, sci fi is fantasy, you can go wild but the premise still needs to be believable, if the audience is to invest in it. In this instance, I found little to compel me to invest in the tale being told and the characterisations. The latter felt shallow, forcing the actors to over act, in an attempt to compensate, which only made matters worse. A dash of the usual woke nonsense, did nothing to further enamour me, to this already uninspiring production. More than that though, the dark, cynical overtones of "Section 31" didn't feel like Roddenberry's vision of "Star Trek". A vision of a technologically but also humanistic-ally enlightened future, filled with scientific and academic discovery, that overcomes all adversity In summary, I wont beat about the bush, "Section 31" is, in my estimation, "awful". It's not just the uninspiring story, populated by anaemic characterisations. No, more than that, it simply doesn't feel like "Star Trek". Enough said.

What a load of rubbish. I can't believe that someone at Paramount said, "yes, this is worth airing". What an embarrassment!

Well I think it’s hats off to all on-screen here who must have to stand around for ages in their CGI suits waiting for the computer to insert them, hologram-style, into the artificially created scenarios that dog this drivel from start to finish. And if the title of empress was good enough for Catherine the Great and Victoria, then why not for “Philippa Georgiou” (Michelle Yeoh)? Anyway, she’s been driven from her dimension and forced to join the elite division of “Starfleet” that’s been concocted to keep us all safe from problems that were usually initiated by that self same exploratory/interfering body in the first place. So quickly we encounter our first and biggest problem here, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the original or subsequent “Star Trek” philosophies. The adventure is straight out of a book of “Stargate” storyline rejects and Yeoh simply hasn’t enough to get her teeth into. The story, for what it’s worth, sees this supposedly top secret operation randomly hook up in the pub to discuss whatever problems they have in the timeline they had just arrived from, or gone to, or that they were expecting an invasion to come from, or that maybe the erstwhile captain of the “USS Discovery” was hiding after supposedly getting the chop on her imperial order in. They’ve also got to track down the epitome of doomsday weapons that makes the “Red Matter” seem as dangerous as the “Winnie the Pooh’s” pot of honey and all of this whilst under the gaze of an Irish fellow from Vulcan (Sven Ruygrok) who at least has some cheeky dialogue and the odd go at what passes for sarcasm from this woefully verbose script. There is also very little actual action to follow here, with almost all of the adventure coming in the last fifteen minutes and not really worth the wait at that. I like my sci-fi, but just because the machines can make it look good is no reason to make it if you don’t invest in the writing or the characters and just try to substitute that with oft-seen whizzy visuals and a score that like the film itself was desperate to get something of the original Alexander Courage onto screen, but never quite dared! Paramount+ has been something of a disappointment all along but this takes it more into the realms of Amazon Prime than Optimus.