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".

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.

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.