My views are in apparent minority but nevertheless I want to stress them out.
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is a film very different from its predecessor. To the point of being entirely different genre. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was somewhat dull but ambitious, lagging but visually stunning, based on quite typical, but anyway interesting premise, resembling old science fiction stories. It was the slightly poorer cousin of 2001:Space Odyssey. ST:TWK is nothing of these. It is a simple adventure movie accidentally placed in space. Its story has almost no SF elements, they are to be found only in movie's scenery. As a result it's difficult to compare both movies and I don't understand almost all such comparisons made here, on IMDb site. But personally I find ST:TMP superior in virtually all elements, including special effects and visuals (in the 1979 original one can really see the effort and its big budget).
Putting original aside, and judging ST:TWK only by modern action-adventure standards I find it an extremely dated film. The acting is weird and/or weak, the main villain outright ridiculous. Khan's motivation is unconvincing, his actions mostly unintelligent (despite film's claims of his being 'superior'), he wears rags on bare chest and looks bizarre and hilarious at the same moment. The story is full of plot holes and, in the end, is utterly boring. One cannot care for neither relate to any of the main characters, even in the supposedly most emotional moments of the film.
The Wrath of Khan may be possibly interesting for die-hard fans of Star Trek. However for SF fans, fans of action flicks and pretty much for everyone else it deserves to be forgotten.
CAUTION POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT
Not to mention climactic "his pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking" scene, which is, as the whole movie, ridiculous. The Captain Kirk's final "three-dimensional" maneuver is as two-dimensional as it can really be. Khan is not showing two dimensional thinking, he is simply ignoring the third dimension existence! Pretty lame for a superior being of excellent intelligence.
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is a film very different from its predecessor. To the point of being entirely different genre. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was somewhat dull but ambitious, lagging but visually stunning, based on quite typical, but anyway interesting premise, resembling old science fiction stories. It was the slightly poorer cousin of 2001:Space Odyssey. ST:TWK is nothing of these. It is a simple adventure movie accidentally placed in space. Its story has almost no SF elements, they are to be found only in movie's scenery. As a result it's difficult to compare both movies and I don't understand almost all such comparisons made here, on IMDb site. But personally I find ST:TMP superior in virtually all elements, including special effects and visuals (in the 1979 original one can really see the effort and its big budget).
Putting original aside, and judging ST:TWK only by modern action-adventure standards I find it an extremely dated film. The acting is weird and/or weak, the main villain outright ridiculous. Khan's motivation is unconvincing, his actions mostly unintelligent (despite film's claims of his being 'superior'), he wears rags on bare chest and looks bizarre and hilarious at the same moment. The story is full of plot holes and, in the end, is utterly boring. One cannot care for neither relate to any of the main characters, even in the supposedly most emotional moments of the film.
The Wrath of Khan may be possibly interesting for die-hard fans of Star Trek. However for SF fans, fans of action flicks and pretty much for everyone else it deserves to be forgotten.
CAUTION POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT
Not to mention climactic "his pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking" scene, which is, as the whole movie, ridiculous. The Captain Kirk's final "three-dimensional" maneuver is as two-dimensional as it can really be. Khan is not showing two dimensional thinking, he is simply ignoring the third dimension existence! Pretty lame for a superior being of excellent intelligence.