Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube
Originally planned as a streaming series before morphing into a streaming film, terrible pacing, over-the-top characters, weak production values, questionable directing choices, and twists that can be seen a mile away completely crush the kernel of a good idea that this film was based around. The basic premise of the story is not bad, but the execution is terrible. It takes too long to get into the main plot and once it gets going, it feels so uneventful that it takes a minute to realize what’s been happening is the actual story and not just some setup for the real plot that will be revealed down the road. (It doesn’t help that the directing attempts to be stylized in some kind of “Guardians of the Galaxy/Suicide Squad” mashup that falls completely flat.) Not only that, the big bad’s identity is blatantly obvious immediately…even though they feel more like a henchman that the main baddie. While there is a surprise or two in the story, the next biggest twist is also pretty obvious, but at least it feels somewhat clever. The action is mediocre, with the fight scenes being shot in the least interesting ways. The effects and sets look like a TV series trying its best to look like a movie and coming up way short, and they jettison just about anything that visually clues the audience in on the fact that this takes place in the Star Trek universe. The characters are all pretty grating and only become just barely tolerable by the end. (And the movie’s attempt to add some heart is so too underdeveloped to make any impact. This plotline might have benefited the most if it was a series and not a movie.)
*1/2 out of *****