Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is now an instructor at Starfleet Academy on Earth and is starting to feel his age. The idea of inspecting the USS Enterprise, now a training ship, isn't making him feel any better. The training cruise takes a more serious turn when a face from Kirk's past makes a shocking reappearance. Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) has been driven mad after Kirk exiled him and the habitable planet he had been marooned upon having turned into a desolate wasteland. After taking over the USS Reliant with his army of genetically-engineered supermen, Khan has stolen the top secret Genesis device and plans to use it to set a deadly trap for his old nemesis.

I was a big Star Trek fan as a kid, back when The Next Generation was on the telly. I also really liked Deep Space Nine, but never really got into Voyager. I had moved onto other interests by the time Enterprise came around. I hear that I haven't missed all that much any way. Nowadays I am more of a casual Star Trek fan and more into the movies than the actual series. That being said, 'Amok Time' is still one of my favourite Original Series episodes.

I haven't acually seen the episode where Khan first appears. I gather that back then Khan was just another villain of the week. It was this movie that turned him into the villain that all the other Star Trek baddies are measured against. The makers of Star Trek Into Darkness didn't help themselves when they decided to pretty much remake this movie. Also, Khan's pecs aren't prosthetics. Ricardo Montalban really was in that good a shape! Maybe I should go back and watch 'Space Seed' as Khan seems like a pretty cool villain. Who doesn't love a hammy villain that quotes classical literature all the time?

Talking of being an old ham, William Shatner has gotten a lot of flak for overacting all the time. He could have spoiled the scene with Spock's death by acting over-the-top, but is performance is quite restrained and is even rather moving. I hear that this is because the director ordered numerous takes of the scene and ended up using the take when Shatner has hammed himself out.

Is the fact that Spock died in this movie even a spoiler any more? I think that anybody that has the slightest interest in the franchise already knows that. The fact that Spock gets brought back in the very next movie does rather spoil the emotion of the situation. Spock's death was intended to be permanent however. Leonard Nimoy was getting tired of playing Spock, and after the lukewarm reception of the first Star Trek movie, Paramount was considering putting an end to the franchise. It later turned out that Nimoy enjoyed playing Spock so much that he wanted to come back. It helped that this movie turned out to be even better than the first and even saved the franchise from its early end.

My rating: 4 stars