Alternative titles are "Let's Hire Hitler", "I'd happily kill all of these except the haughty Starfleet brunette", "Alias but in the Star Trek universe and awful" and "There are better ways to spend a commute".
To be quite frankly, while Philippa Georgiou is an interesting character, a spinoff featuring her wasn't exactly at the top of anyone's priority list. I believe this was originally supposed to be a series, then turned into the 2020s equivalent of a TV movie. I might be wrong, but I don't care.
It seems these people didn't either. My notes ran to four and a half pages of A5, rather few of them actually praising the movie in any way. I didn't write that this would be better with riffing, but it would be.
Weirdly enough, I found the second half of the movie barely more enjoyable than the first.
Anyway, comments:
- Young Georgiou needs some throat sweets or a glass of water.
- Having your lead murder her family to obtain political power in the prologue is not the best way to endear them to the audience.
- If you love someone, burn their face with a red-hot sword.
- Starfleet is where fun goes to die? Beckett Mariner would disagree there.
- The number of sympathetic people in this movie could be counted on one finger. I am of course talking about Rachel Garrrett, future Enterprise-C captain, played here by Kacey Rohl, who I'd seen previously in The Magicians as hedge mage Mariana. She's the best thing in this trainwreck and I admit to having a bit of thing for haughty brunettes.
- Garrett deserves great praise for not beaming these idiots into hard vacuum the first chance she got. Not quite sure why they decided to channel Alias with the colourful wigs though.
- If you are trying to retrieve a superweapon, don't use it for hitting people!
- Fuzz... if Sven Ruygrok ever applies for an Irish work permit, the Department of Enterprise,
Trade and Employment should demand substantial compensation for murder of the Irish accent and being a general eejit. I was actively wishing for his demise. - Zeph was not much better. In fact, this whole cast reminded me of Veep, a show where nearly everyone is an awful person. Sam Richardson, who plays Quasi, won a SAG award for his role on that. He's not going to get that here.
- An awful lot of stuff happens at remarkably convenient times.
- The "comic misunderstandings" are more annoying than comic. Characters also spend an awful lot of time talking when they should be trying to save the day.
- We get rather obvious Volume Wall at times.
- Michelle Yeoh is doing her best with awful material. She's been doing this martial arts stuff since 1985, where she very much started the "girls with guns" sub-genre in Yes, Madam. Bit judging by the amount of quick cuts, one wonders if her age is now catching up to her in that department.
- The Droom doll is the funniest scene in the movie, which is saying something.
- San's death also reminds me of a scene from Alias, but Jennifer Garner sold it much better when it happened then.
- Some of this dialogue probably looked better on paper than it sounds out loud. It's rather clichéd in some ways.
- The climax is rather poor as you just don't care whether these people live or die. Except Rachel Garrett.
- The final scene in the space station reminds me of some TOS episode endings - and not in a good way. It's setting up a sequel I somehow doubt will happen.
Conclusion
Well, I've had worse movie experiences, but not that many that don't involve riffing. If this hadn't been a Star Trek movie I'd have probably not touched it with a barge pole.
Pretty dire, really.
2/10
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