Customer Reviews

Wing Commander: Space Will Never Be the Same

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(71)

 

 

Unfortunately, "Wing Commander" has gotten blasted quite a bit by Hollywood critics and many viewers for a lot of reasons. The Hollywood people don't like it because its not Shakespeare. Many of the viewers didn't like it because they were players of the Wing Commander game and the movie is different from the game.

However, when judged on its own merits, "Wing Commander" is a decent space adventure film. So what if it is not Shakespeare and so what if its different from the game? This film combines fantastic special effects, great battle sequences, and rather compelling characters and character conflicts. We have Lt. Blair who must deal with his half Pilgrim heritage. We have Lt. Marshall who's recklessness gets him into trouble. We have Lt. Commander Deveraux, a woman who's cold exterior is her defense against loosing friends to the war. Then there is Taggert, a wise space pilot who has a hidden identity.

All of this makes "Wing Commander" a space adventure film worth seeing. If one does not nitpick the film to death, "Wing Commander" is a fun and enjoyable film for science fiction fans. Don't listen to the critics and the disgruntled fans of the Wing Commander game. If your looking for a fun scifi film, get "Wing Commander".

There is, in my opinion, such a thing as a good bad movie. What is a good bad movie? Well . . . you'll know it when you see it. It is a movie that you enjoy for all of the wrong reasons. After seeing "Wing Commander" I came to the conclusion that this is not a good movie. This is not even a good bad movie. This movie is just plain bad. Bad bad bad.

Based on the popular video game, "Wing Commander" is set in the future, when you'll be happy to know that mankind is battling a bunch of big cats in space (yes, cats). Our heroes are Maverick (teen hearthrob Freddie Prinze Jr), and Maniac (Matthew Lilliard, the weird guy from "Scream"), two fighter pilots assigned to the Tiger's Claw, which must go on a mission to save mankind from the cats attacking Earth. Or something like that. The plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and the clunky script doesn't make it much better.

The war movie cliches are recycled with relish here. I enjoyed "Starship Troopers" because it recognized and took the old war movie cliches and tried to put a new spin on them. (The melodramatic propaganda films throughout were rather entertaining.) I loathe "Wing Commander" because it takes the old cliches and adopts them as its own. Fellas, we've seen this done before. And we've seen it done better. Some "trust in yourself" scenes felt like they were lifted word-for-word from "Star Wars".

In one particularly silly scene right out of submarine movies, the crew of the Tiger's Claw hushes up as they listen (yes, listen- the enemy's sensor sounded suspiciously like a surmarine's sonar) to an enemy destroyer search for them. I leaned over to my friend and whispered: "Since sound can't travel in space, why in the hell are they whispering?" Good question, never answered.

And can't you just feel the passion of the actors? Actually I couldn't because I was too busy laughing at the bad dialogue. I could almost imagine the director and his team showing the finished product to a producer, passionately pitching their film as a "tragic war story" when the producer breaks them off: "You've just made a movie based on a computer game. It features cute actors fighting cats in space. Get a life."

The special effects were pretty disappointing too. Far from looking like space-aged fighter planes, the Rapiers looked like WWI biplanes. And don't get me started on how silly the uniforms looked either.

Acting? I felt sorry for Jürgen Prochnow. Talented actor, I've seen him in far better films ("Das Boat", "Air Force One") that this. His career will survive. I also think Freddie Prinze Jr's career can survive this movie. He has the talent to be a good actor.

Matthew Lillard's, on the other hand, I can only hope does not. He was perfect as one of the weirder kids in "Scream", totally wrong here as misfit "Maniac". Saffron Burrows is similarly terrible as Angel- somehow I don't think that even in the future fighter pilots will look like waifish models. The less said of Ginny Holder, the better.

Director Chris Roberts needs to go back to film school and start from scratch.

"Wing Commander is a good competitor for the title of "Worst Film I Ever Saw". (For the moment that honor still rests with "The Last Action Hero".) But it is pretty close. I enjoyed "Starship Troopers" for its fun. It was a bad movie, but it was really fun to watch because it felt like the cast and crew were having fun and not taking themselves too seriously. "Wing Commander" is a bad movie and a chore to sit through because the cast and crew were taking themselves so seriously and labor under the delusion that they are making an important movie. Lighten up fellas. It's only a movie.

For someone who's not a fan of the sci-fi genre, evaluating Wing Commander is pointless. As a sci-fi it's very good, even for people who aren't familiar with the popular computer game series that spawned the movie.

What's nice about this film is that the story is everything. The acting is all right--not bad, but in general not fabulous either. But what this film delivers is essentially a classic World War II submarine/carrier story set in space. It's got action moments and tense waiting game moments, but the story focuses mostly on the fighter pilots (for obvious reasons) so there's plenty of gunfire and stunt flying to go around.

The effects serve the story here, not vice-versa. Bullet time was thrown into one pulsar-jump sequence, following its brief success in Lost In Space and before it was used so extensively in the Matrix; previews sadly made the movie seem like an excuse for that effect, but the movie stands up just as well without it. Nothing looks especially CGI or goofy. Not too much flash, not too little.

The music is plenty good, the story is plenty decent, and the effects don't smother everything else. It's good sci-fi, which is rare enough to begin with, and worth your time if you appreciate the genre.

I saw this movie having already heard that it wasn't too great. Well, those observations were made by people that hadn't played the computer games, and I can assure you that it is far worse than 'not too great.' This film is reinforcement for the proven thesis that one should never make a movie out of a video game.

I should note that in most cases, the movie version of a video game had at least a better story. Take Mortal Kombat for instance, or Super Mario Bros (that one's a bit debatable due to how much it sucked). In this case, however, the movie story actually isn't as good as the game version! I was especially appalled when I learned that Chris Roberts directed this piece. The man must have been smoking some heavy crack while he read over the script.

I'll admit the movie had some interesting plot aspects to it, like the stealing of the navigation 'black box' at the start. However, this curious plot element was not followed up in any intelligent manner. The fighters in general looked markedly different from the ones in the game, and in my opinion don't look half as intimidating. Kilrathi ships also look fragile and clumsy, though they are supposed to act tough and agile. The Tiger's Claw was oddly cramped for an attack carrier, looking more like a submarine than a starship from the inside. I suppose it's an interesting change of ship design, but it doesn't follow anything in the games.

Now, about that plot. This was the real strength of the Wing Commander product line and what made the last few installments in the game series especially fun. The Kilrathi really seemed brilliant, diabolical, and cruel. They didn't just rampage around like your typical alien invader, but hunted human captives for sport, disintegrated prisoners of war, stole Terran warships and used them to ambush whole fleets, and even pretended to be defeated so as to rebuild their huge navy. They were unique villains that made you feel like a patriot whenever you blew one away. Here, they are about as interesting as the little colored blobs you zap in Space Invaders.

Everywhere but in the movie, Wing Commander characters were well developed and each had a unique and often humoring personality. Not so here, where the humans are basically a bunch of fighter jocks looking to stick a few more kills on their Rapiers. The most interesting (read: least 2-D) character was 'Angel' Devereaux, who in my opinion is the only act deserving any credit. Maniac was supposed to be a snobby, annoying cur (and was hilarious for that), but is a pretty-boy sentimental wreck in the movie. Others of the Tiger's Claw wing that were well developed elsewhere were hardly even seen in the movie. The Kilrathi are completely undeveloped. You barely even SEE one of them, let alone get a sense of who or what they are.

On the note of the Kilrathi- they are supposed to be scary! Terran marines are terrified of going up against them in close combat, because they're huge and have big teeth and claws. The wimps you see in that action scene (and by the way, pilots aren't supposed to act as shock troops) don't do them justice. I think their house cat ancestors would have been more frightening.

All right, so there has to be a reason for my not flat-lining this production. That would be the graphics. While they aren't up to the standard of what ILM produces, the folks at Digital Anvil have done a pretty fine job for their first theater production. The torpedo battles were especially cool. In fact, they were probably the only thing I liked about the movie. The only thing that had me scratching my head is- didn't the Tiger's Claw have guns in addition to torpedo launchers? Funny that it seems like it's the only capital ship lacking those.

The bottom line is, this is a renter, if even that. Don't waste any money on it, unless you are really itching for some sappy space drama.

With the original Wing Commander computer game series, Chris Roberts had a great thing going...a great plot, good character development, and, for the last two, great actors, including the animatronics used for the Kilrathi. The thing that really got the computer gamer was that there was great gameplay with an equally good story...you really understood all the characters, good and bad. By converting this great thing into this dreadful movie, Roberts has in one fell swoop destroyed everything he created in those games...the movie lacked all credibility. Once you've played as Blair and seen how his character developed, including his interactions with his friends and the Kilrathi, you could never believe this was the same "person" on screen. Maniac, a classic from the games, was portrayed very poorly and did not resemble the "real" Maniac at all, and the Kilrathi were given no substance at all...if you've played the games and loved them like I did, then stay away from the movie at all costs, because it leaves a very bad taste in your mouth.

I played all Wing Commander computer games and i consider myself a fan of the series. And i congratulate Chris Roberts on his long-time dream, to bring Wing Commander to the big screen. Roberts may not be a Hollywood director, but he has something, many others lack: Vision. He created the hole series. And his passion definitly flows through the movie. His various allusions to Homer's Odyssey are also a nice addition. The music score is absolutely fantastic. The themes have been composed by David Arnold, who also composed the epic themes from Stargate and Independence Day. The special effects are really great. Roberts own company Digital Anvil created some effects that are on the same level as ILM effects. But the movie also has its weeknesses. The biggest one are the Kilrathis. The look rather dull compared to the computer game series and they appear only in two scenes. Too bad! The storyline also has its flaws, but it is never boring.

The actors are very good. Matthew Lillard really gets on ones nerves and Jürgen Prochnow gets another chance to play a naval captain. (Greetings from Das Boot!).

All in all, the movie is fun. Every SciFi fan should watch this film.

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and ventured past the dessert case, peered in at a picture-perfect piece of pudding pie? Flaky crust, mile high meringue... Ordered it with high expectations with a cup of coffee and, upon first taste, discovered that the flavor was remarkably similar to cardboard? A culinary masterwork in every way except one; taste.

This unlikely analogy best describes the Wing Commander motion picture experience. On the surface it has all of the ingredients that make epic science fiction so tantalizing: A massive struggle between humans and aliens, a cast of lead characters unique enough to be recognized with an action figure line (of which there was back when the film was in theaters), solid visual work from that era just prior to the over reliance upon computer generated imagery, and a legion of pre-existing fans of the property thanks to the popular computer video game series on which the film was inspired.

Yet, and not unlike my above pie example, the experience is unmistakably disappointing, not fully satisfying, and definitely slightly askew. But before we jump the gun, let's take a look at the facts and stats.

Theatrically released stateside back 1999, Wing Commander had the distinction of sharing science fiction screens with such space epics as Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace and the animated Titan AE.

Runtime comes in at 100 minutes and the film is rated PG-13 for sexual references and sci-fi action/violence.

Based loosely on the plot of the game series of the same name, the film plot unfolds smack dab in the middle of an interstellar war between the Terran Confederation (humans) and the lion-like Kilrathi.

The movie centers on the exploits of 1st Lieutenant Christopher Blair and Todd "Maniac" Marshall; a pair of young pilots assigned to the carrier Tiger Claw. With a vibe that sometimes resembles that of 1997's Starship Troopers, Wing Commander emphasizes the space-military life through the eyes of young cadets flying their first combat missions.

It turns out a massive Kilrathi armada is en-route for our lowly blue planet and the Tiger Claw is charged with the arduous task of essentially a suicide mission in delaying the armada's advance in effort to allow the remainder of the Terran fleet time to intercept.

A lot of the drama in the film stems from the simple fact that lead character (Blair) is exposed for being half-Pilgrim; a unique strain of humanity who developed uncanny genetic galactic navigational abilities. Naturally tensions exist between Blair and his fellow pilots as a result. Chalk it up to typical human inferiority complex if you'd like.

Now the bad news; while the games were known for their rich acting and sweeping political scope, the film somehow manages to sidestep all of the richness while simultaneously delivering a pretty cardboard script. Worse still is that somehow the video game incarnations of the franchise managed to secure acting talents much more up to the task of delivering on epic science fiction characters (Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies to mention a few).

Perhaps most surprising is that the game's designer Chris Roberts was given the green light to direct the film as well. The intentions here are clear and really admirable but Roberts' lack of experience in the arena is revealed nearly constantly throughout the picture with cobby plot structuring, strange scene cuts, and what could best be described as odd directorial decisions. In other words there was specific attention paid to the whole "Top Gun" testosterone in space ideal even at the expense of the few plot threads that show potential (such as the technology involved with the navigational device stolen by the Kilrathi which will allow them to jump through worm-holes in space to arrive behind enemy lines).

Additionally no greater a ball could have been dropped than concerning the transition of the Kilrathi from the computer monitor to the big screen. The Kilrathi in the games were downright frightening at times with their cunning and ruthlessness. Unfortunately in the film, aside from being terribly rubberized and obviously unmovable, the whole species is depicted as little more than "an evil alien race bent on universal conquest". A shame really when you consider the potential shown in the source material.

Surprisingly, the effects are actually one of the film's greatest strengths. Digital Anvil deserves credit for rich starfields, nicely textured spacecraft, and some solidly rendered battles. It should be noted that this era represents a very interesting time in feature film special effect production; when CG was becoming extremely popular but physical (practical effects) were regularly intermingled for realism. That said the Rapier space fighters featured in the film were actually built from scrapped English Electric Lightning (EEL) jet fighter fuselages. The attention to detail pays dividends here (even if game fans have, traditionally, had a hard time accepting the visual differences in style).

Stiff acting and a rather lackluster plot actually may have been offset slightly had the original script's concept of dual traitors (Sansky and Admiral Wilson) in addition to more background information about the Kilrathi and their first attack on a space station been retained. The novel, which was based on the film's shooting script, actually includes most of these cuts, proving a slightly richer story arc from which to draw. It is rumored that cuts were made to remove the whole traitor subplot from the finished film since it would have required several additional footage segments focusing on the less than impressive Kilrathi puppets.

In all these are certainly much poorer science fiction films in existence and the crimes Wing Commander commits are certainly forgivable when you stop to consider the strange reality that video games, for whatever reason, never survive the adaptation to film successfully. Yes there is much to bag on here but at the same time, there is enough space opera substance to argue a strong case that this is one of the finer game translations.

Now consider this, having brought in a meager $11.5 million theatrically, the picture didn't even come close to halfway recovering the $30 million budget 20th Century Fox dumped into creating it! That said it is fortunate we received a DVD release at all. Science fiction space operas have a disturbing tendency of falling off the face of the earth (no pun intended); I'm still waiting on an official release of 1996's Star Command or 1988's Earth Star Voyager!

There are two types of people who should avoid this movie: Hard science fiction buffs, and die-hard fans of the original games, anyone else should find this an enjoyably silly way to spend an evening.
The implausibility factor of this movie is high, there is sound in space, the fighters fly like aeroplanes, there is a quasar in the Sol system and so on. However weighed against that is an entertainingly different way of looking at space battles - that is - more like Das Boot than Star Trek, the ships are small and cramped and battered, the people are jittery and the whole enterprise looks like it's one asteroid short of oblivion. There are also no fancy lasers or energy weapons, just missiles and pellet throwers.
This is also not the Wing commander of the games, the characters have familiar names, but they are not the ones we've known from before. Freddie Prinz Jr is bearable as Blair, but there was probably an interview room full of actors who could have done the job better. Matthew Lillard is good as maniac, and Tchéky Karyo is (as ever) excellent as Paladin, despite not being Scottish. The Kilrathi are laughable but they're only visible for about a minute in total, and given the miniscule budget the rest of the SFX are good to excellent.
However the film has two problems: the editing, and the script. The film was apparently edited to remove a sub-plot and that has left it slightly bloodied, the "Pilgrim" idea is not developed and looks like it was tacked on to give Blair a way out a sticky ending, and the overall pacing is very uneven. With a bit more time and a bigger budget, this would have been a hit, but as it is, it's an enjoyable B-movie with a familar name.

This part of the review is for the veterans:

I have played every Wing Commander game so far (including every add-on disc) and I can recommend this movie to everyone, who blew the Kilrathi across deep space, too. Although the story takes place before the first Wing Commander game, it is not that much of a problem that Chris Roberts mixed a few items from later WC games into this movie (like the Snakeir battleship, Admiral Tolwyn or the Skipper Missles). Okay, the special effects are better than Starship Troopers or even Star Wars Episode 1, but why was it necessary to change the look of all the capital ships and fighters that much? The Tiger Claw (why not Tiger's Claw???) does not look like the Bengal-class carrier to me, but more like a battleship that happens to have a few fighters on board. Anyway, although some people might miss an actor resembling Colonel Halcyon, Jürgen Prochnow and Tcheky Karyo are doing a good job as the good guys (ever noticed that the Kilrathi ships were PINGING in order to find the good guys? - "Das Boot" must be around somewhere - especially with all those torpedo battles during the movie). What is REALLY fascinating about this movie is the soundtrack! Honestly, I have never EVER heard anything better since Star Wars (especially "The Imperial March" of "The Empire Strikes Back") or Dark Star. So, if you know the games, and liked them, the movie is a DVD/VHS that is worth being had. Enjoy!

This part of the review is for the rest of the world:

Okay, okay! I know that even uninhabited asteroids would have been better actors than the "young heros" of the movie. I know that everyone, who does not know the games, does not understand the story. I also know that some people might think that after hiring Jürgen Prochnow (Das Boot) and Tcheky Karyo (Goldeneye), there was no cash left for writing a good story or hiring more known actors (but that worked with Starship Troopers!!).

But hey! This is a movie for the fans of the game! Chris Roberts has put his dream on the screen and his efforts are worth it! This movie isn't perfect, but for those, who like the topic, it is a good piece of entertainment.

The story is paper thin. The Kilrathi were too stiff. There were too many holes in the plot. There were unrealistic physics. The list goes on...

So why did I like it? Maybe because I was not expecting much. The director, Chris Roberts, was the creator of the Game "Wing Commander", and he directed the cinematic scenes in two games. But that's all he had to his credit. In my book, he has done a remarkable job for someone not in the field. The budget of the movie was also restrictive. But that did not slow the show. And also to be noted is that the movie is based on a computer game. In movie history, that is usually a penalty.

The acting is on par... with the rest of the teen flicks out there (where acting performances rely mostly on good looks). The music is a amazingly good, however. You might replay a scene just to hear the music over and over (well... I liked it). The space flight action scenes are also well done.

But the plot hurts the movie. I think there were too many scenes that were cut-out, making the final product filled with unexplained scenes. I was mystified by the meaning of quite a few events.

The movie as a whole could be summed up as fun, light no-brainer. Do NOT consider it as a "gritty WWII in space" adventure, as the director assumed it to be during an interview. It is just entertaining, if you don't compare it to something like "Star Wars".

NOTE: Please contact me if you have a copy of WC (DVD). Mine does NOT have the French audio track, despite the cover info! Please confirm this! There might be an erroneous info!