Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Directed by Nicholas Meyer
The starship Enterprise and its crew is pulled back into action when old nemesis, Khan, steals a top secret device called Project Genesis.
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What critics compared Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to
Fans of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” will be delighted or annoyed by the overt references and parallels to that film, including one over-the-top nod that is so forcefully wedged into the story that it’s unintentionally funny.
Yet he also sets an exhilarating new course in this nimbly twisting feature, which pays homage to 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Every time the film reminds me of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, I thought it was nice for a moment, but just for that moment.
While the film may borrow heavily from previous even-numbered Star Trek films (the twisty plot of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the relentless action and pace of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and the friendly humor of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), it also establishes its own identity.
As in the successful 2009 reboot, the blockbuster machinery overwhelms everything else, though this hardly matters because everything else is recycled: characters (the wicked Khan, played here by Benedict Cumberbatch), conflicts (the stale debate over logic versus emotion), and themes (weepy male romance as Spock watches Kirk expire inside a quarantine chamber, just as Kirk watched Spock die in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).
Messy plotting seldom detracts from the proceedings, although it’s worth pointing out that the movie owes a major debt to the well-reviewed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, released in 1982.
They hated how director J.J. Abrams reworked major themes and reintroduced bad guys from 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the franchise’s crown jewel, making them less clever and resonant in the process.
Kirk, as he did in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, is starting to get a little bored.
The previous installment, 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, even made an ill-received rehash of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, easily and arguably one of the most beloved of the Trek films.
The crew is starting to feel the weight of time and the sameness of routine, particularly Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), who is so desperate for a change of pace that he is considering a promotion to admiral, which will raise his stock but keep him grounded for the rest of his career (this plot point and the fact that it is his birthday both recall 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which remains a perennial touchstone for the franchise).
Given that "Firefly" is often referred to as the anti-"Star Trek," it's worth noting that Whedon rationalizes a deep-space cloud formation by pointing to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and boasts that Mal and Inara are standing on the same rocky slope that served as the Genesis Planet in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .
Joss Whedon, who created the show and wrote/directed the film, seems to want to bypass Star Trek: The Motion Picture and go directly to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Crowe, Costner and the diabolical Shannon (who seems to be channeling his own version of the Ricardo Montalban role in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”) are by far the best things about the movie, managing to seem like recognizable humanoid types in this arid landscape.
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Marshall is nothing if not forthright about his influences, having his movie-savvy characters drop references to Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and The Matrix along with the occasional apt fairy tale—“The Three Little Pigs” doesn’t come up, but “Goldilocks” definitely does—while he name-checks Jaws and Zulu on his commentary.
…as we know from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" that Kirk was an absentee dad — he couldn't bridge the gap between his career exploring the universe and his family. Carol (Bibi Besch) tells Jim (William Shatner) in that film, "You had your world, and I had mine."
(The katra is what allowed Spock to hang out in McCoy’s body between Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
We met David as an adult in the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," played by Merritt Butrick.
…the iconic Star Trek villain from The Original Series episode "Space Seed" and later Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan…
…that David and his mother Carol will not be much in his life until they reunite in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a story that does not end well for all involved…
Kingsley, Coixet and screenwriter Nicholas Meyer ("Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan") wring a lot of nuance out of Kepesh's emotionally arrested inability to commit.
Director James Gray’s style harks back to classic space movies, such as “Alien” and “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” that played around with the vastness of the stars, and made it seem like there was nowhere lonelier.
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With Sam Mendes behind the camera, with the ridiculous collection of talent in front of it (including new additions Javier Barden, Ralph Fiennes , Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw from "The Hour"), and with a lot of talk about how this was going to be a more mature take on Bond (even more mature than the first two Daniel Craig films), I began to wonder if this was the film that had the ambition to be more than just a great James Bond movie, but to transcend its genre and series in the same way that "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" or "The Dark Knight" are just great films irrespective of their franchises.
In theory, the mid-film reveal of an undersea kingdom where Godzilla goes to recharge his batteries in between battles should have a mythic, Lovecraftian grandeur, and it does, but it’s infiltrated by a gesture of absurd sentimentality engineered to give a human character a tragic send-off: The model is clearly Leonard Nimoy’s death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , except that this particular figure doesn’t have the gravitas of Mr. Spock.