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‘Star Trek: Section 31’ Review: Michelle Yeoh Stars in a Franchise Tangent Too Thinly Tethered to the Mother Ship
Michelle Yeoh’s antiheroine from 'Discovery' returns in a streaming feature that’s lively enough, but lacks the character and heart Trekkies expect.
The still-nimble former Hong Kong martial arts genre star has certainly gained additional luster since her last Trekkie outing, thanks to that Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” plus the current “Wicked.” But despite her evident enthusiasm, Philippa Georgiou isn’t really an ideal primary focus — she’s a variable friend/foe/frenemy to the Federation whose slipperiness cedes the role of more standard heroic leader to charismatic Omari Hardwick ’s Alok Sahar, though he never quite seizes the spotlight. The story then leaps forward to a time after she lost that throne, and has already spent a considerable stretch as a quippy operative of covert Federation intelligence unit Section 31 on “Discovery.” (Never mind that this is only her “Mirror Universe” persona, as opposed to the same-named nice Star Fleet Captain killed off in that series’ 2017 pilot episode.) She turns out to be currently occupied as hostess-owner to a sort of deluxe dive bar, her edge not so dulled that she can’t immediately recognize a half-dozen new guests as poorly disguised agents: Strongarm Zeph (Rob Kazinsky), whose bull-in-a-china-shop ways are heightened by a tank-like exoskeleton; Irish-accented Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok), who looks like a Vulcan but is really a Nanokin, or “intelligent microbe”; Quasi (Sam Richardson), who can morph into any physical form; initially blue-haired Garrett (Kacey Rohl), a humorless Star Fleet rules-enforcer; and chrome-domed Melle (Humberly Gonzalez), whose superpower is basically “hypnotic sexiness.” There’s also the eugenically “enhanced” human Alok, the sole member of this party who’s neither a middling one-joke idea or constantly bickering with the others.
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