Product Details

• Actors: Freddie Prinze Jr., Matthew Lillard, Saffron Burrows, Tchéky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow
• Directors: Chris Roberts
• Writers: Chris Roberts, Kevin Droney
• Producers: Donna Burkons, Jean-Martial Lefranc, Joseph Newton Cohen, Neil Young, Romain Schroeder
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: February 6, 2001
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (202 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305475695
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,475 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Video games are interesting because they're interactive, and movies because they aren't. In a video game, you're the actor; moviegoing depends on your connecting with those people up on the screen;. There's really no easy crossover.

That's the problem with Wing Commander, based on the bestselling computer game series created by Chris Roberts. Roberts helms the film, too, having previously directed "cinematic" sequences for the game, starring Mark Hamill from Star Wars, no less. But a feature-length story is something else again. Maybe gamers will find something to enjoy here, but that sets the rest of us adrift.

There's war between the Terran Confederation and the evil Kilrathi, who are so evil they want to destroy the whole universe. (They probably aren't thinking that through very clearly. But then they're evil.) They've stolen the Pegasus Navicom A.I. device that enables them to "jump" behind enemy lines and destroy the Earth part of the universe. Freddie Prinze Jr. stars as Blair, a Pilgrim, which means he's hated by everybody for having this film's answer to the Force. His pal Matthew Lillard plays Maniac (his usual role). So you've got two guys with a Top Gun complex, bent on preventing the Kilrathi from destroying Earth. You'd expect lots of action from these combat-ready flyboys. But there's scant little of that, and lots of static dialogue scenes, including one cinematic quote of Howard Hawks's classic Only Angels Have Wings to explain how pilots handle the death of one of their own. Presumptuous. All it would have taken to make this film a success is a series of action set pieces and a thin plot to hang them from. What director Roberts needed was a Navicom device to help him "jump" behind Hollywood lines. That and a decent script. --Jim Gay

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Much Underrated Space Adventure Film, March 4, 2001

By 

Captain Hornblower "captainhornblower" (Orlando, Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wing Commander [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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".

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What do you say when "awful" isn't enough?, February 12, 2000

By 

Michael J. Berquist - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wing Commander [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent sci-fi; non-fans stay away., August 11, 2000

By 

Lee Gaiteri (Syracuse, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wing Commander (DVD)

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.