Review of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) by Michael R — 15 Dec 2012

Being a huge star trek fan and an avid moviegoer I decided to write a review of a few of the more noteworthy star trek movies. This movie is considered by trek fans to be the best of the movies and to that I say you are setting the bar pretty low.

This movie is decent, dont get me wrong, but there isnt a lot of star trek in this. Its essentially an action movie with the star trek label slapped onto it. The action is great and you get to see how great a strategist kirk is in the movie. So lets go through the movie and see what is good and not so good about it.

The beginning of the movie has some great themes such as facing mortality, knowing where you fit into the world (universe). However almost all of these ideas are never fleshed out. It seems its like filler until the khan battles. There is no real underlying message that most star trek is known for. Sure there is revenge but that is nothing new in movies even in the 80's.

Also since they made it a maniacal revenge story, khan makes a lot of poor choices just because he wants to kill kirk, things he wouldnt of done in the original show. Kirk does out think him to a point but its more of khan's fatally dumb move that causes that to happen. Thats the problem with revenge movies in general though so its not exclusive to this movie.

The acting is over the top and is almost cartoonish is spots. The action is great and there was some great special effects and there was some clever writing for the actions scenes. What really salvaged the movie for me is the escape and spock sacrifice at the end. At this point you really have a connection to the characters and shatner didnt really overdo it in the scene and it was done. Im wondering if this movie would even be allowed by roddenberry as he had no involvement with the movie which is a story onto itself.

This movie could of been great but instead its just good. Its a solid action movie and you get to enjoy the enterprise crew but its not a whole lot more than that.