Kahn will steal your heart and then destroy it.

Rating: 8/10 (17 April 2020)

There is no light without the Darkness. In the history of cinema big baddies have stolen the screen and made a good movie great. In recent memory the list of villains audiences loved to hate include the likes of Thanos (Josh Brolin), the Joker (Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix...in that order), Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), and Willam Cutting (Daniel Day Lewis) just to name a few. These actors painted their cinematic canvases with shades of grey nuanced evils so masterfully it asked the viewer to explore the bad places they would never go in the back of their own minds. So what is it that make these villains so beautifully bad? It is a combination of their power and might but also their humanness, which is to say that we can relate to them even if we don't want to admit it. They shine brighter than their counterparts on screen and no matter how great the other actors in the movie may perform, the own and make the movie. All of that being said Benedict Cumberbatch's Kahn checks all the boxes to easily join the ranks of recent and all time cinemas greatest baddies. The movie itself is not a masterpiece, but the familiar recurring characters like Spock (Zachary Quinto), and Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), bring a wonderful combination of heroism, conflict, comedy, and likability to the movie. However Kahn is the heart of this movie. His undeniable power makes him a more than worthy adversary for the crew of the Enterprise. Like Thanos and many of our other favorite bad guys, Kahn's display of might and cunning is scary to the point that we question how the hell can anyone defeat them. Kahn is an immovable dark force capable of extinguishing our belief that our beloved Enterprise heroes are good enough. A lot of people will overlook the performance of Benedict Cumberbatch in this movie...and many people have never seen this movie or will never see this movie. In this case many people will see my comparison of Kahn to the most notable villains in cinematic history as ludicrous at the least. But I argue that he belongs in the same class as any of these baddies, as within his universe their are no equals. Whether you love or hate him, Kahn jumps off the screen and taps in to all of our fears and captures or attention from start to finish. This movie is underrated and under appreciated in itself and those who miss it will be missing a huge link in the chain of unforgettable characters of recent cinema.