Olatunde Osunsanmi’s new TV film “Star Trek: Part 31” is weirdly retro in its setup, feeling harking back to delightfully corny B-movies of the Nineteen Eighties like Peter Manoogian’s low-budget time-travel lark “Eliminators.” The primary character is Empress Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), the genocidal tyrant of the Mirror Universe, and he or she has been enlisted to be a part of Part 31, Starfleet’s ethics-free black ops group that handles harmful secret missions.
The movie’s solid, nevertheless, is rounded out by a rogues’ gallery of numerous aliens and specialists, every one enlisted to assist the Empress on an important mission to retrieve a doomsday gadget. There may be the shapeshifter Quasi (Sam Richardson), a none-too-bright cyborg bruiser named Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok), a microscopic organism named Zeph piloting a human-sized robotic (Robert Kazinsky), an ultra-seductive Deltan named Melle (Humberly Gonzalez), and Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl), a straight-laced Starfleet officer who’s there to guarantee that murders are saved to a minimal.
Additionally current is Alok Sahar, who capabilities because the Part 31 middleman who reached out to Georgiou within the first place. Alok is hard, taciturn, and implies that serving Part 31 would possibly give the Empress an opportunity to redeem herself for a few of her many, many crimes. He’s, in brief, the Firm Man.
Alok is performed by Omari Hardwick, an actor from Georgia who has been working professionally in movie and TV for the reason that early 2000s. He has additionally been lengthy concerned in theater tasks all through Los Angeles for a few years and sometimes participates in poetry slams. Hardwick has appeared in lots of high-profile characteristic movies as properly, having labored with many recognized administrators alongside the way in which. He even turned up in what could be one of the best movie of 2018, so you have got probably seen his face earlier than.
Star Trek: Part 31 is merely one of many many large tasks Omari Hardwick has starred in
Hardwick began his movie profession with a little-known 2002 indie flick known as “Circles,” however quickly after broke into the mainstream with a task within the hit 2005 comedy “Magnificence Store” starring Queen Latifah. His depth and pliability as an actor had him immediately concerned in quite a few different large studio tasks, together with the navy thriller “The Guardian” and the Dwayne Johnson car “Gridiron Gang,” each of which had been launched in 2006. Then, in 2008, he was solid as Commander Huggs in Spike Lee’s struggle epic “Miracle at St. Anna.”
Alternatively, some would possibly acknowledge Hardwick from his function as a gruff cop within the violent superhero riff “Kick-Ass” or from his supporting flip within the 2010 movie model of “The A-Staff,” whereby he performed Chopshop Jay. Hardwick additionally labored with Tyler Perry on the 2010 drama “For Coloured Women,” which earned him a nomination for a Black Reel Award. Certainly, Hardwick has been prolific for fairly a while now, showing in a number of movies and TV reveals yearly. In 2018 alone, Hardwick appeared within the rom-com “No person’s Idiot,” each starred in and served as an government producer on the romantic drama “A Boy. A Lady. A Dream.,” and was the co-lead within the Iraq Battle veteran drama “Sgt. Will Gardner.” On prime of all that, he performed the mysterious Mr. ______ in Boots Riley’s surreal masterwork “Sorry to Trouble You” (a movie by which he obtained to put on a bowler hat and an eyepatch, as seen above).
Within the fast lead-up to “Part 31,” Hardwick starred within the Jennifer Lopez car “The Mom” and labored with Zack Snyder on the zombie action-horror mishmash “Military of the Useless.” He actually has been round. On TV, one would possibly moreover acknowledge Hardwick from his starring function within the short-live 2006 sequence “Saved” or from all 20 episodes of “Darkish Blue.” He is even been in music movies for Ruff Endz, Floetry, Nasty C, Estelle, and Jay-Z, and has recorded singles of his personal with artists like 50 Cent.
Most notably, Hardwick performed James “Ghost” St. Patrick, the lead character of the six-season Starz TV sequence “Energy” (which ran from 2014 to 2020). And this is not even his entire profession. If Hardwick seems acquainted, it is as a result of he is been nearly in all places within the final 20-odd years. “Star Trek” is, for him, simply one other feather in his cap.
“Star Trek: Part 31” begins streaming January 24, 2025, on Paramount+.
