This is more like it! After a rocky start with an admirably cerebral but ultimately dull first big screen outing, the Star Trek series bounced back with this excellent, rip-roaring adventure classic, generally considered the best in the franchise.
Filled with memorable moments, vivid performances, awe-inspiring spectacle and a much-improved score, it's more-or-less a perfect entertainment. And all this for a staggering one-third of the cost of its predecessor.
The jury's still out on the legitimacy of Ricardo Montalban's chest but his wonderfully hammy performance as Khan gives us one of the great modern sci-fi villains, countered by William Shatner's heroic, sly Kirk who - along with everyone else on the crew - seems to have been upping their Personality Plus supplements since the last film.
It's this twinkle in the eyes of the entire cast and a strong sense of wry humour that makes the film such terrific, old-fashioned fun. It's the kind of film Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone might have made forty years earlier, with galleons instead of spaceships.
Filled with memorable moments, vivid performances, awe-inspiring spectacle and a much-improved score, it's more-or-less a perfect entertainment. And all this for a staggering one-third of the cost of its predecessor.
The jury's still out on the legitimacy of Ricardo Montalban's chest but his wonderfully hammy performance as Khan gives us one of the great modern sci-fi villains, countered by William Shatner's heroic, sly Kirk who - along with everyone else on the crew - seems to have been upping their Personality Plus supplements since the last film.
It's this twinkle in the eyes of the entire cast and a strong sense of wry humour that makes the film such terrific, old-fashioned fun. It's the kind of film Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone might have made forty years earlier, with galleons instead of spaceships.