| Review : |
Views may differ on what was the best Trek film, but this will always be my favourite. It's a very effective use of continuity to bring Khan back in. He made an effective threat, localised, but potentially very dangerous. Ricardo Montalblan put in a very good performance, showing Khan as a man on the edge of madness, yet retaining enough sanity to plan his actions and strike at the most advantageous moment. He could have eased back on the Moby Dick quotations a bit though. Kirstie Alley made for a very emotional Vulcan, which was most curious, but good in her own way (a certain cast member from a certain new series could have learnt a lot from her). The story itself was excellent. The writers obviously took the time to consider the previous flim's reception and wrote as a response, bringing in the fact that the cast were beginning to show their age and weaving it into the story. Then there was so much about facing death, right from the beginning with the Kobyashi Maru. Maybe Kirk had faced death before, when he lost his brother, or having to kill Gary Mitchell, but he seemed not to have faced it in quite the same way. Oddly, he also rediscovered his estranged family, but that was not to last. I also liked the way the atmosphere seemed to have changed, become more realistic perhaps. The new uniforms were good, definitely looking the part, and the landing party jackets were very practical (they had POCKETS). I liked the way we got to see so many parts of the ship's operations; people running about to form damage control parties, actually loading a torpedo tube, everything in engineering and so on. Reliant vs Enterprise was a very effective space battle, done entirely with motion control (no CGI cheating) and Kirk's solution was a very effective use of the third dimension (often overlooked, but crucial in space). It's interesting that Khan died when he thought he had won, Pyrrhic victory or not. It took Spock's sacrifice to change it. It was a big thing, killing off Spock, but you can see how they left the door open to bring him back. Still, it produced some moving scenes at the end. An excellent film, well worth saving for my 300th review. |
