Technically the first Star Trek movie since 2016. Spoilers.
Unfortunately this is just plain bad.
I really looked hard for a redeeming feature, but there just isn’t one. The previous fun of Georgiou is lost in this pale cardboard imitation of the past. It turns out that it’s a flavour that works sparingly, and in conjunction with other parts. Here it’s overwhelming, comes across as scenery chewing, and she has nothing in particular to play off making it very flat.
It barely feels like Star Trek as well. The main plot relies on almost none of the usual Star Trek universe or setting – you could transplant this into another background in an afternoon of script editing The continuity with other Trek is also terrible – including Discovery in terms of Georgiou’s character arc, or any of the other appearances of Section 31.
And then the direction is lacking – style over substance, with very little substance provided. It’s also quite derivative of the the JJ Abrams Trek movies. There isn’t a noteworthy performance – indeed, the only one that escapes ‘awful’ is Kacey Rohl as Rachel Garrett – but even that loses points for the lack of continuity with the Garrett we see in Yesterday’s Enterprise. Even the music is tacky and overly didactic.
And finally, the plot is dull. We invent another ‘deep connection from her past’ for Georgiou (together with a never-before-seen way of choosing an emperor – which makes no sense for the Terran Empire). We have a half-baked heist movie, followed by a bit of an action thriller ‘trust no one’ sequence, and finally a barely Trek-adjacent spaceship chase. With far too much time spent on underwhelming fight sequences.
Overall one of the worst pieces of Trek ever produced. Clearly the worst of the movies (I’d rather watch Star Trek V again than this), and honestly only a notch of two better than the worst episodes ever.
What a disappointment given the talent and previous efforts of all involved. I suspect a cursed development and production process is at least partly to blame here.
Quick hits:
-
OK, cute mirror universe gag with the Paramount logo and Star Trek logo.
-
The visual style is very ‘JJ Abrams’ to my eye.
-
Wow that young Georgiou looks a lot like Hoshi.
-
I hope the Terran Empire is paying its Hunger Games (and Battle Royale) royalties.
-
Of course you whispered to each other, you whisper to everyone…
-
Oof, this blatant exposition is terrible. Among other things, the person doing the redaction seems to not understand you redact the key words, not everything else.
-
While paying royalties they’d better do something about the Fifth Element singer rip-off as well.
-
OK, time for a bit of a continuity rant – “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” stablished that Black/White and White/Black Cheronians had been wiped out thousands of years ago – the two we saw were the last, and had been chasing each other for 50,000 years. It makes no sense to have one working in the bar here.
-
Michelle Yeoh is really enjoying chewing the scenery here, but without the anchors of Discovery it’s just not working.
-
Can we find Zeph an airlock ASAP.
-
Fuzz’s accent can join Zeph in the airlock.
-
Why would Section 31 have a Star Fleet minder?
-
I feel like we were in this ‘meet the team’ sequence for ever.
-
‘Latinum card’ makes no sense. You want Latinum, not any kind of credit card.
-
Why aren’t they phasing through the floor here if they;’re out of phase with everything. Especially if they can phase through walls.
-
Did the container just bounce off one wall and then through another? .
-
Ah, Eugenics wars connection. But that’s not how the augments worked. Can’t we at least get a reference to Khan or Colonel Green.
-
Feels like they couldn’t be bothered even trying to pretend this wasn’t the first two episodes of a cancelled series.
-
Why on earth have they relocated to the photogenic planet to have this argument rather than talk on the bridge of a starship.
-
The beeps in the background of the starship is the first time this has felt at all like Star Trek.
-
Why would they store the Godsend, rather than keep it with the Emperor?
-
I’m surprised there was any scenery left over for Dada Noe to chew after Michelle Yeoh was done, but it seems there was.
-
Oh good, the inevitable ‘the heist crew turns on each other’ sequence. Tiresome.
-
Why does this planet keep exploding? What possible mechanism is driving it?
-
Flashbacks to an entire scene from earlier in this movie, not a lot of faith in the audience’s intelligence.
-
Where has this enormous underground complex they’re going through come from?
-
Maybe get the asymptote coil out a bit quicker when it’s life and death for quadrillions of people?
-
‘Chaos is my friend with benefits’ – it makes me sad that a string of people thought that line was good enough to keep in this movie.
-
Why bother hunting down the weird alien when the catastrophic threat is in the other ship?
-
The self-destruct is a single button on the main interface? Next to ‘open cargo bay doors’? Wow they must lose a lot of garbage scows.
- Why bother with Jamie Lee Curtis for such a tiny cameo. Also, I hope the royalties department also paid the Mission: Impossible folks (right next door back in the Desilu days).
And it’s also time to update the movie rankings:
Great:
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Good, but flawed in some way:
- Star Trek Beyond
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
- Star Trek Into Darkness
- Star Trek: First Contact
- Star Trek
OK, but not great:
- Star Trek Generations
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Plain and simply bad:
- Star Trek: Insurrection
- Star Trek: Nemesis
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
- Star Trek: Section 31
939 down. Next, time to catch up on Prodigy Season 2.