I had lunch with a friend last week. We’re both what you’d consider a bit more than average Star Trek fans – not purists, not superfans, but we both really enjoy the shows, the movies, the actors. She knows that I was planning on writing a review for the brand new Paramount+ Star Trek: Section 31 film, and asked for my opinion. I’ll tell you what I told her – I’m so sorry, just don’t bother.

Reprising her role from Discovery, Michelle Yeoh returns as Emperor Phillipa Georgiou, who was a terrific, exciting character. (And she was great as Madame Morrible in Wicked, too.) As the homicidal, genocidal iron-fist ruler from the Mirror Universe, she strides majestically across the screen, purring in a blood freezing manner. And when talk of a Section 31 series starring Yeoh came up, it sure sounded like a great direction for the world of Star Trek to go in. Section 31 is the shadowy agency within the Federation, doing the bad guy stuff that even good guys sometimes need to get done. Section 31 is referenced in a couple of the older series, mainly Enterprise and DS-9, popping up for bits of mysterious storylines. In a world where the humans mostly strive to be better people, Section 31 operatives did the dirty work that there’s always a need for.

And then the planned series was downgraded to be a film. Well, ok, we can live with that. We’ll complain about not getting an entire new series, but (for those of us who have liked the newer series and don’t whine about them, like some people do), it’s better than nothing while waiting for S3 of Strange New Worlds. Except – this was not better than nothing. Nothing would definitely have been better. This was written by Craig Sweeny (Limitless, The 4400) and directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi (he produced the Short Treks features).

The film starts in a mostly promising manner, with the Mirror Universe Emperor’s origin story – reminiscent of Hunger Games, young Philippa returns to her family after fighting her way to becoming the co-semi-finalist of a large scale tournament to the death for the honor of taking the throne. She tells her story to her family, living alone out in a wasteland, of how she’s possibly fallen in love and made a pact with San, the other co-finalist. But now, to determine the final winner – and Emperor –  they have to eliminate anyone else they would have an allegiance to beyond the Empire. The first person to do this wins. And one by one, her family starts to choke on the poison she has added to their meal. As they die, a legion of armed guards transports in to honor her for winning the contest, along with Philippa’s lover, now to be her slave as the contest’s loser. And this is where any interesting plot dies.

This was not a Star Trek movie. It was Suicide Squad in space. played for laughs. The only thing that was Star Trek was the team leader, Lt. Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl), who keeps saying, “I’m Starfleet!” The setup and character introduction go on and on, and it’s not until well more than a third of the film has passed that they actually get to the reason they’re all there. The victim of the augment war, the way over-outfitted mech, the shapeshifter, the tiny alien moving a body around like a Vulcan robot with an Irish accent, the bald glam Amazon – and Georgiou, now the owner of a casino/bar/pleasure playground space station, have to work together to retrieve a powerful weapon brought over from the Mirror Universe. Is it the “Godsend” or the “God’s End”? Oh boy, this crack goes on for minutes, and hey howdy, who cares. The only mildly interesting bit came at the end, with the reveal of who their Controller is – and in case you still haven’t seen this mess, I won’t reveal that. Is there any hope that this band of misfits, minus the mech, could form a Section 31 squad and travel across the quadrants getting rid of more bad guys? I sure hope not. That’s a lot of money that could be spent on something worth watching.

In the recently-ended Discovery series, Emperor Georgiou was scary, haughty, ultimately sort of redeemed, and the Mirror Universe was once again interesting, despite having been a bit overused throughout several previous series. Here she really only has a very high opinion of herself and her ability to give a stern verbal lashing. Much of the film was hard to follow, difficult to understand, and the ending was unsatisfactory. I had been looking forward to this, and now I’m just so sorry.  I wanted Star Trek, and sadly, got Misfits in Space.

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