The reviews for Star Trek: Section 31 are in. It is a feature-length direct-to-streaming spin-off from Star Trek: Discovery. So potentially already facing an uphill battle, given the quality of that show.
It does have Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh in the lead, so how bad can it be? Well, according to these reviews, very bad.
There is no way to sugarcoat this. At Rotten Tomatoes, it is at 21% (5.1/10) and sinking. Metacritic scores it as 37/100, so propping up all Star Trek feature-length projects from all time. Let’s get into it:
“Section 31 [feels] more like a game of Fortnite with Star Trek skins than a feature-length continuation of the beloved franchise… Section 31 is, at best, understood as proof that maybe ‘Spock’s Brain’ or ‘Shades of Grey’ or, heck, all of Discovery season five aren’t so bad after all.”
Joe George, Den of Geek
“Star Trek: Section 31 doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a serious exploration of the criminal underbelly, a camp throwback to the noughties, or a tonally off combination of the two? Whatever it is, it doesn’t work half as well as it should.”
David Opie, Total Film
“If it sometimes feels a bit hollow, well, not every Star Trek story has to have profound commentary on what it means to be human. I know how great Star Trek can be, and I would be lying if I said Section 31 didn’t leave me a bit disappointed.”
Tessa Swehla, The Wrap
“What we get is a noisy affair in which the optimistic ethos and iconography of Trek are mostly jettisoned in favour of a grungy aesthetic and a bog-standard sci-fi plot… The obvious aim here is to make a grab for the Guardians of the Galaxy crowd, but neither the script nor the action sequences are nimble enough.”
David Brown, Radio Times
“The screenplay struggles mightily to mine humor from the quirky characters with little success… Yeoh has such a commanding and darkly amusing screen presence that the pedestrian film can almost, but not quite, be forgiven for letting her down so completely.”
Frank Scheck, IGN
“A movie that struggles to convey any kind of meaningful identity for itself, all while ignoring the one it could establish with the wider Star Trek franchise, regardless of whether or not it ultimately stood in contrast or in resemblance to it.”
James Whitbrook, Gizmodo
“Section 31 isn’t boldly going where we haven’t been before; it’s a rote, lazy, incurious mess too afraid to risk anything by challenging its audience at a time when we may need Star Trek‘s progressive humanism more than ever”
Rachel Hulshult, Screen Rant
My favorite is from the New York Times who say, simply “Set phasers to shun.” Star Trek: Section 31 launches on Paramount+ today so if you are so inclined, you can check it out for yourself.