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Posted in: Movies, Paramount+, Review, TV | Tagged: michelle yeoh, section 31, star trek
Section 31 Is Star Trek's "Secret Invasion": That's Not a Good Thing
Section 31 should have been an easy win: Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh in a Star Trek spinoff actioner. Instead, it's a wrongheaded disaster.
Section 31 is a strange beast. It should have been a no-brainer and a win: Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh headlining a Star Trek action spinoff. Who doesn't like the sound of that? The signs were not great from the start. The Star Trek: Discovery spinoff was announced before Yeoh won her Oscar for Everything Everywhere All At Once and was still in development after her win. It went from a full-fledged TV series she was supposed to lead and was reportedly redrafted several times with the original showrunners replaced, then finally announced as a single movie with the possibility for more if it was successful. Now it's finally out and the result is far from a winner. In fact, it's a complete mess, a disaster that is everything this kind of movie should not be. Just think about what a Section 31 movie starring Yeoh as the lead should be, the best, coolest, most ideal version you'd like to see. Hold that vision in your head. Then imagine your disappointment, no, dismay at how bad the exact opposite of what you imagine could possibly be. Yes. it is that bad. It is unspeakably bad. It is cosmically bad. It is how not to write or make a Science Fiction action movie, let alone Star Trek. Just so you know? "MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD"…
Section 31 is a Total Waste of "Dommy Mommy" Michelle Yeoh
Philippa Georgiou became a fan favourite on Star Trek: Discovery after the most convoluted origins: she's an evil genocidal empress of the Terran Empire from the Mirror Universe, where everyone good in the normal universe is evil and the counterpart of the virtuous Starfleet captain and mentor to Discovery heroine Micheal Burnham that the latter had gotten killed. Deposed and brought to the normal universe, Empress Georgiou was an amoral, violent outcast with a vague eye on redemption and an abiding affection for Burnham, recruited into Section 31, the amoral black ops division of Starfleet. She became popular because Michelle Yeoh played her as a camp, vampish "dommy mommy" who flirted with everyone, especially Burnham, and was as likely to have sex with her as kill her in the most creepy Freudian surrogate mother-daughter relationship that subverted the earnestness of Star Trek with an edge of perverse transgressiveness.
Well, after an initial introduction where Yeoh seemed to be having fun vamping, the rest of Section 31 turns her into a sad sack, emo-ing over her desire for redemption and being dumb because the plot called for it, which is already the wrong creative decision. Nobody wants to watch a fun character be Debby Downer, but that seems to be the default of screenwriters who don't have any fresh ideas. Fans loved the character because she was cunning, lethal, and five steps ahead of everyone in the room. It was like the writers of this movie never read that brief or saw her scenes in Star Trek: Discovery.
The "Secret Invasion" of Star Trek Shows
Remember Secret Invasion, the absolute worst of the Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series and the nadir of the MCU franchise? It was badly written, indifferently directed, and a total waste of good actors, including A-listers, that everyone who made it and everyone who watched it would dearly love to forget it ever existed. Section 31 is the Star Trek equivalent. The movie starts with a flashback to Young Georgiou feeling sad that she has to murder her family to claim power. Because the young version of a character feeling sad and emo is what screenwriters think is deep. That's already a really bad sign for things to come. Then it gets unsurprisingly and progressively worse.
The plot of Section 31 is beyond basic: Georgiou is drafted again by the division to take part in a heist of a doomsday weapon that turns out to be one she built while she was an evil empress. On paper, that's a perfectly workable premise, but the script makes the dullest and most stupid decisions possible like the makers are actively trying to kill a whole franchise in one go. The supporting characters are all so incredibly annoying from the moment they're introduced that I hope they all die. Every SciFi moment that the writers seem to think is cool just feels totally pointless and stupid. Things happen because they just do. There's no point in even discussing the plot because it doesn't make sense. The whole movie looks expensive yet cheaply and sloppily made. The CGI FX are murky and muddy, and the direction is lacklustre as if the director, a regular on Discovery, zoned out midway through what was rumoured to be a troubled production and just threw in a whole bunch of pointlessly flashy stylish shots that call attention to themselves with quick cuts to keep it from looking boring. The fight and action are indifferently shot and framed.
A Bad Movie is Not the Actors' Fault
One of them, has possibly the worst Irish accent in the history of the world. The characters are so tragically underdeveloped they all feel like first drafts. Their dialogue is cringe-inducing exposition that's unique in TV writing that no writing student should ever learn to do. Nobody in life talks like that. The bad guy is pretty obvious when you cast James Hiroyuki Yiao, a talented Canadian actor who has the vibe of having played a Big Bad in virtually every Canadian SciFi show he ever showed up in. That may not be true; it just feels that way. He was a compelling Big Bad in the recently failed and cancelled Orphan Black: Echoes.
The moment he showed up in a flashback and seemed to die, you just know he's going to show up and turn out to be the Big Bad. It's the unfortunate law of TV casting when you have familiar faces who get too good at what they do. Section 31 is not the fault of any of the actors. They're just doing the job they were hired to do and as they're directed. Omari Hardwick, who was a magnetic lead as a gangster trying to go straight in six seasons of Power on Starz, comes off here like he's in a different, much better movie. Kacey Rohl, a secret MVP of many Canadian-shot series like Hannibal and The Magicians, has the thankless role of a straightlaced Starfleet officer with not much to do whose name is supposed to mean something to longtime continuity Trek geeks, but I don't care enough to think about.
The Worst Misstep of Section 31
The most ridiculous and wrongheaded decision of Section 31 was to make us believe Georgiou is a crappy fighter after she showed her skills in Discovery and the fact that she's played by Yeoh. Audiences want to see her kick ass – that's her entire appeal! – yet the script wants us to believe she keeps getting her ass kicked and fought to a standstill by enemies who are obviously less skilled than she is! Michelle Yeoh's 1980s Hong Kong action movies were a lot more fun and shorter than this, and the catering budget for Section 31 could have paid for five of them. Nobody sets out to make a bad movie. There are too many people, too much money and too many resources spent on any of them. That leaves me wondering what went wrong with Section 31. Was it too many chefs with too much money that killed creativity? Is it fun to write a review this long, poking away at everything terrible and wrong about a movie? Absolutely, but why are you reading this far? Does it give you catharsis or feel you're not alone, or do you want to be provoked if you disagree? It's all good, even when a movie is bad.
Section 31 is streaming on Paramount+.
Star Trek: Section 31
1/10
What should have been a no-brainer win - Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh in a Star Trek action spinoff - turns out to be a complete disaster with every creative decision a waste of Yeoh and her talents and completely pointless story decisions that feel like the writers are actively trying to kill off a whole franchise in one sweepingly awful movie that makes no sense on any level.
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