Cheap Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan (DVD) (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley) (Nicholas Meyer) Price

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Customer Reviews of Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan

The Best of Trek
Star Trek II has always been my favorite Trek film, but has also become one of my all-time favorite movies. It is a very well-done film from good acting, to great action and special effects, to the whole idea of bringing back one of Trek's greatest villains, Khan Noonian Singh. There is always something occuring in this movie that will keep you on your toes, from Kirk dealing with the unexpected return of his old nemesis, Khan, the battle scenes between the Enterprise and the Reliant, the quarreling over a new experiment- the genesis device (which can turn a desloate moon into a pradise), to the surprising death of Spock that left fans in awe at the theaters. There are no gaps in the plot, everything flows nicely from beginning to the end. I just wish we could have seen Khan's attack on the Space Station Regula 1 :) If you love, or even like Trek, or even thinking of watching some Trek - 1. Buy the Original Series episode "Space Seed" and then buy "The Wrath of Khan."

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The return of Khan was a great idea
The makers of the Star Trek films have done many things to them but bringing back Khan was no doubt the best. Aside from the Gorn(who would've been to hard to bring back) was the TV series best villain. Nicholas Meyer no doubt the best Star Trek director. "The Wrath of Khan" was the best Trek film until "The Undiscovered Country" came out. And those were the only two directed by Meyer. In the film Khan (Ricardo Montilban) and his team of genetically engineered super humans hijack the USS Reliant and attempt to steal the Genesis project. tHere was another good idea. I really liked Genesis. They also introduced David (Merrit Butrick) as Kirk's son. Which added a good element. It gave Kirk (William Shatner) more depth and feelings. This film also featured two unforgettable sceneces. Of course Spock's (leonard Nimoy) death. But also the final fight between the Enterprise and the Reliant is truly a great battle no doubt the best of the Trek battles fought in space.

Montalbin makes truly a great villain and overall it hard to find anything wrong with "The Wrath of Kahn."

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One for the ages
Back when "The Wrath of Khan" first hit the theaters, I remember thinking that Khan now ranks with the best movie bad guys of all time. I think Ricardo Montalban may have turned out the best performance of his career by bringing complexity, passion, pathos, and humanity all at once to the role of Khan. I'll never be able to read Moby Dick the same way ever again - "He tasks me, and I shall have him... I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom, and 'round perdition's flames before I give him up!" Sure, I'm an avowed lifelong trek fan, but I don't think I'm exagggerating this by much.

On a more objective note, the movie works very well at multiple levels...

The soundtrack itself is exceptional and, at the time, somewhat ground-breaking for the movie industry. This is evidenced by the fact that subsequent soundtracks in the sci-fi genre seem to have borrowed from Horner's original score. I think it was a shame that "Khan" was not nominated for an Oscar in the original score category.

The visual effects, which were state of the art at the time, still hold up over twenty years later. It serves as a good example and reminder that movies used to have good special effects even in the pre-computer era.

The acting was also superior. I already mentioned that Montalban may have given the performance of his life as "Khan", but I don't think it ends there. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley also recaptured the feel of the cameraderie from the original series. I am aware that Shatner is often criticized for being overly-dramatic, but my opinion is that this may also rank among the top two or three performance of Shatner's career as well (including the TV show). One of the more memorable moments came following Khan's failed attempt to have Chekov and Terrell kill Kirk: [Kirk to Khan] "You've managed to kill just about everyone else, but like a poor marksman you keep missing the mark.", which was, of course, followed by Kirk's timeless "KHAAAANNNN!!!" exclamatory. The acting was so good, IMHO, that the audience doesn't really notice that Kirk and Khan never really meet face-to-face, and the movie doesn't suffer because of it.

The Director's Edition DVD comes with a well-produced disc of supplementary material (interviews, commentaries, etc.) as well. I particularly liked the recent interviews with the actors on their recollections from when the movie was being produced. My favorite interview was Ricardo Montalban telling how horrified he was upon realizing how much he sounded like Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island when he started reading his lines for the first time - "This is going to be a disaster! The audience is going to laugh at me!" He then tells of how he fixed the problem by requesting a copy of the original TV show "Space Seed" where the crew of the Enterprise first encountered Khan, and watching it over and over again until he began to recall his original work with the character. Shatner also delivers a pretty good interview as he describes how he'll one day make Nimoy and Harve Bennett pay for not letting him in on the secret that by the time the movie had been shot that they already had plans to bring Spock back. Whether or not Shatner really knew is irrelevant - the interview is delivered w/ a deadpan that leaves the viewer in stitches. There is also a good piece about how the visual effects were accomplished.

Overall, I rate "The Wrath of Khan" as the best movie in the entire series of Star Trek theatrical releases, and one of the better movies ever produced in the sci-fi genre as a whole.