monster-monster Reviews

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

It is and always shall be the best Star Trek film.

[9/10 · 2 December 2005]

This is a brilliant film that has everything; action, suspense, great characters, good story and best of all Kirk and Kahn! Ricardo Montalban is excellent as the vengeful Kahn who want's nothing more in the universe to kill his "old friend" Kirk who he blames for ruining his life and indirectly killing his wife.

William Shatner plays a less confident, reflective, vulnerable Kirk who must not only deal with his arch Nemesis baying for his blood but a son who would be "Happy to help" Kahn kill him.

The rest of the Star-Trek crew is solid and give excellent support, especially Leonard Nimoy as Spock.

Most impressive here is the film - great pacing, music, classic lines and brilliant and imaginative special effects considering that this film had one of the smallest ever budgets for Star-Trek motion picture.

Much credit goes to the director Nicholas Meyer who balances everything just right and racks up the suspense and tension brilliantly when needed. This guy may be one of the few people who can actually save the current Star Trek franchise - they should give him complete control over the next film - I'm sure he'd even be able to make a great film out of Enterprise and resurrect the franchise as he did with Wrath of Kahn in 1982.

Great film for Treekies and Non-Trekkies, in fact it's simply the best!

Streets of Fire (1984)

The Searcher's in the 60's.

[8/10 · 30 November 2005]

This is a brilliant film that is much more than it should be because of one genius director - Walter Hill.

He understands and sets the tone and world of this pic perfectly - it has straight-forward, old-western style dialouge, clear good and bad characters and rip-roaring action that reminds you of the old classic westerns that Walter Hill admittedly loves, in particular the Searcher's.

I won't say much about the plot expect for a badboy returns home rescue the girl he once loved after she is kidnapped by a leather-clad motorcycle gang. It's pretty simple but what you have to watch out for here is Walter Hill's visual and editorial style which was probably the best around in the eighties.

There isn't any Oscar-worthy performances here but there was never meant to be none - Michael Pare does well with his limited John Wayne modelled role, Rick Moranis shows that he can play much more than the "nerdy-neurotic" character that made him world famous in the early nineties, William Defoe plays a better villain in this than he did in Spiderman and Diane Lane shows that she was once, the hottest woman in Hollywood (she still ain't too bad today!).

This film deserves more credit, votes, attention and DVD extra's than it presently has - definitely one of the best film's of the eighties.