Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

This is one of the high points of the Star Trek movie series. After the disappointing Star Trek: The Motion Picture, this was a massive improvement in both story telling and character development. The story revolves around a device called Genesis which creates habitable life from desolate planets. However an old nemesis, Khan, wants the device after his planet is nearly subject to the device's effect.Ricardo Montalban is excellent as Khan and is one of the strongest villains in the series. The cast of the original series has much more to work with this time round and their performances are just as great as they were in the show. Kirk is given lots of character development as we learn how he tries to escape death, which ties into the film's theme of sacrifice. It's also much more fast paced and action oriented, but it still maintains the intelligence that the series is known for. The battle sequences aren't stylised but rather they show the brutal effects of combat as we see crew members bloodied bodies after the ship has been hit by phasers and ion torpedos. This is an excellent entry into the series and remains a fan favourite for a reason.

The best Star Trek movie, and among the finest of the genre! The effects and look still hold up today, but the main draw here is obviously the plot! A tale of revenge and and sacrifice, that plays out much like a Greek tragedy in space. With plenty of memorable characters and quotable lines! If you wanna know what all the fuss is about Star Trek, see this film!

Movie Review: "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" (1982)After initial television visionary producer Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991) departing from producing the metaphysical, ultra-high-budgeted "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" directed by four-times-Academy-Award-winning director Robert Wise (1914-2005), Harve Bennett (1930-2015) takes over with less than a third of the original production budget in season 1981/1982 to grant Academy-Award-nominated screenwriter Nicholas Meyer the chance to create a high-stake poker game of a Hollywood entertainment powerhouse Movie by revisiting the title-given nemesis character "Khan" in reprising portrayal by actor Ricardo Mantalban (1920-2009) after the Kirk-challenging character's first appearance in Episode 22 of "Star Trek" Season 1 in 1966/1967.Captain James T. Kirk, performed by now in full-bloom action-beats-sharing actor William Shatner, put on an astoinishing tense confrontation between to spaceship commanding characters in thrilling scenes of a screenplay written by Jack B. Sowards (1929-2007), who together with the director Nicholas Meyer bring a fast-paced science-fiction-action opera into motion that any spectator, who has the chance to watch in a restorated color-graded as 5.1 dolby digital sound certified entertainment system to further witness a never-seen-before twisted thriller-movie set in infinite space of friendship, teamplay, faith, betrayal and ultimate sacrifice to drop to the knees to, because boldness of that kind in story-telling remains hardly missed in an over-populated comic book action operettes of contemporary 2010s event movie cinema. © 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

It's my second favorite Trek movie after First Contact. Much superior to the JJ. Abrams remake in 2013. I give it a 8/10 for the following reasons in order of best feature to lesser feature 1. The Score by James Horner is absolutely what drives the major scenes in this film. When the Reliant and the Enterprise meet for the first time, the score anticipates the danger, Kirk doesn't know he is in. It also illustrates Khan's character as imminently dangerous and reckless. See also the masterpiece Mutara Nebula Score 2. The Character's are fantastic, in particular Ricardo Montalban as Khan. You can see Montalban really enjoys playing the revenge obsessed character. And I enjoyed watching Khan pursue Kirk all over the place. Khan is so consumed by his hate for Kirk that he fails to remember he has the Genesis weapon that he can leverage over the galaxy. In Space Seed they say Khan ruled 1/4 of Earth in the 1990's. Yet, because of his obsession he fails to have any conception of the bigger picture. Shatner does well in this film provoking Khan. And of course Spock's sacrifice for the ship is a tear jerk-er. Such a well acted and genuinely sad scene for anyone who calls themselves a Trek fan.3. The modeling of the ships in this movie were beautiful and made the movie quite artful in ways. I am particularly referring to the Battle in the Mutara Nebula.What the movie lacks: 1. Not a big fan of the sets. They are pretty plain and not very colorful. Not a big fan of the uniforms either. But that's just me.2. The Theme of whether or not people should have the ability to choose what is to be created/ destroyed is very interesting, but is not carried through the movie as well as it could be.8/10