“Chaos is friends with benefits.”

Justin’s rating: Live short and wither

Justin’s review: The most recent theatrical Star Trek release, as of this writing, was 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. It did fine but not gangbusters at the box office, and a fourth film in the Kelvin timeline was never greenlit. And thus far with NuTrek — Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy — all of the focus has been on small screen adventures with no apparent demand nor studio desire to push into movie theaters.

The exception to all of the above came earlier this year when Star Trek released its first and only (to date) TV movie, Star Trek: Section 31. Didn’t hear about it? I’m not surprised. It was such a non-event that impressed neither die-hard fans nor newcomers that it started fading from existence the day after it came out.

Because this is such an odd bird, I felt compelled to shove my face through these 95 minutes. What does a Star Trek TV movie that has nothing to do with the Enterprise or its famous crew even look like?

All of the focus here is on Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies), who played a Starfleet Captain in like the first episode of Discovery and then promptly died. However, her evil Mirror Universe counterpart and ruler of the Terran Empire, Philippa Georgiou, crossed over into the prime universe and dithered around with the Discovery crew for a while before signing up with Section 31, a shady covert organization that works deep inside the Federation to do the dirty work that Starfleet wouldn’t. Section 31 stemmed from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine back in the ’90s and became one of those fan favorite — if controversial — elements of Trek.

So all of this twisty-turny context brings us to this film — which originally wasn’t going to be a movie at all. There were very real plans to spin Georgiou off into a proper Section 31 TV series, but after a long time of talking about it, the studio elected to make a one-off movie and close out the project. That’s a good sign, right?

In Section 31, Georgiou joins up with a covert action team to recover a terrorist device far outside Federation space. It’s an interesting team of Guardians of the Galaxy wannabes, including a seductive Deltan, a huge guy with a giant exoskeleton suit, a talkative shapeshifter, a 20th century guy from the Eugenics Wars, and a tiny dude that pilots a deranged robotic Irish Vulcan (yeah, kind of like in Men in Black).

Oh, and there’s future captain (and current lieutenant) Rachel Garrett of the famous TNG episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” making everyone scratch their heads and go, “In what time period DOES this take place?”* I do love that Garrett goes from looking like a raver in Act 1 to a no-nonsense action girl in Acts 2 and 3… and then puts back on her shiny wig and raver makeup for the very last scene. What’s that’s supposed to tell me about her? Maybe it’s a cry for help. “Please don’t send me back to Starfleet! Please!”

Anyway, after a mission goes south when a mysterious figure from Georgiou’s past shows up to steal a device that’s also from her past, the team’s got to figure out how to recover it before the Mirror Universe arrives to invade the prime universe. Georgiou also says the phrase “sexy times” twice, which I cannot get over.

Let’s not deny that there’s some actual potential with all of this. Section 31, the Mirror Universe, Georgiou, and a covert ops plot are all the stuff of geek dreams. But the first problem is that it’s too far removed from the Star Trek in themes, look, tone, and even timeline. It doesn’t need to have that “Star Trek” label at all.

Thanks to this disconnect, it’s just another exhibit in the case against Alex Kurtzman and his mismanagement of the modern franchise. But that’s a rant for another day.

It’s awfully acted, and you cannot tell me with a straight face that it’s not. Everyone in this cast, Yeoh included, seem like they’re competing to out-overact each other. There’s just zero subtlety or restraint here. It’s all flamboyant declarations, elaborate gestures, and character traits mentioned loudly again and again.

There’s also a lot of people joking around like they were in a Marvel movie, except that it’s not funny and is really out of place with all the modern lingo.** On top of all of that, the direction is atrocious, with snap zooms, pullbacks, and CGI slop galore.

Section 31 has the slipshod jankiness of a television pilot, except that there’s no series after this to smooth things out in the long run (not that I’d want one). It also doesn’t have much of an interesting story to tell or anything new to do with Georgiou, who is a despicable character — a Hitler/Stalin figure who is an actual cannibal*** — who needs to do a lot more than recover a mystery box to be likable.

I don’t know if Section 31 is the worst Star Trek movie, but it’s certainly close if not. What a waste — of resources, of potential, and most of all, of my time.

*This is set during the “Lost Era,” which is the period of time between Star Trek VI and The Next Generation’s premiere. Not that the film goes out of its way to make this clear.

**Granted, Marvel joking isn’t funny in those movies either.

***Seriously. She eats people. And kills millions more. But yeah, let’s make her our protagonist because her actor won an Academy Award that one time.

Intermission!

• The promo art for this is really striking — lime green and fuchsia is quite the color choice
• The Star Trek logo mirror image
• There are only a few connections to the Star Trek series, such as a recast Rachel Garret (captain of the Enterprise-C), planet Cheron from TOS, and the Chameloid race from Star Trek VI
• Dang, she poisoned her whole family, that’s dark
• Every good secret agent wears super high heels
• Eyeballs are tasty
• The Deltan’s heart-shaped bubblegum bubble
• “Being authorized to arrest me isn’t the same as being able to arrest me.”
• Being out of phase makes you untouchable, that seems handy
• “No, I forbid you to die!”
• He’s going to have 190,000 kids?
• “You’re actually a chaos goblin, aren’t you?”
• OK dude, now you’re beating up a corpse
• The bad guy’s bridge looks like it was designed by Tron
• I don’t think that kneeing a robot in the junk is going to do anything
• Did not think we’d be seeing an officer in a trash compactor playing with a talking doll, but here we are
• “Three of your earth weeks later” what
• Garrett with the makeup and wig is my favorite look
• Pointless Jamie Lee Curtis cameo!