Wing Commander

I read that this movie was originally intended to be a direct to video release. Then suddenly Freddie Prinze Jr. hit it big and they thought that his presence might be enough to carry this movie as a theatrical release. I'm not sure that this was good enough to qualify for direct to video.

Let me start off by mentioning what I thought was good about the movie. Tcheky Karyo was very cool and managed to make his scenes interesting despite everything going on around him. That's it. The rest of the movie was completely forgettable.

I actually had a hard time staying awake through this one. Early on I was trying to figure out the story and back story. That was difficult as they keep making veiled references to a group called the Pilgrims. Quickly we meet two of the three main characters. They are both pilots being transfered to the warship Tigerclaw. Freddie Prinze Jr. is Christopher 'Maverick' Blair and rapidly impresses with his ability to be boring and uninteresting. The other is Matthew Lilliard as Todd 'Maniac' Marshall and he even more rapidly impresses with his ability to annoy. Shortly there after we meet their wing commander, Saffron Burrows as Jeanette 'Angel' Deveraux, who exudes all the warmth of a steak that's been in the back of your freezer for the last three years. The lot of them are forced to wander around in 'uniforms' that the average clown would reject for fear of looking silly.

The basic plot is that humans are at war with the Kilrathi. The actual details of that plot are confusing. The Tigerclaw must collect intelligence on the Kilrathi fleet because it captured a device that apparently tells them how to find Earth. Furthermore the Earth fleet is not at home right now so no one is defending the home planet. Plus the message must be carried by hand to the Tigerclaw because the ship that would normally transfer it was destroyed. Once delivered the ship has to make some sort of jump that can only be accomplished by the freighter captain. Apparently it's not on the map or something like that. Once their they have to have a big battle instead of sneaking around to gather intelligence. This somehow leads to a raid on a Kilrathi ship which miraculously has the captured navigation device and is of course poorly guarded. I'll save you the dramatic conclusion. Assuming you can't figure it out.

Thoroughly underwhelmed by the cast I hoped for some cool special effects to keep me amused. Did I mention this movie was based on a video game? If not I should have because the special effects looked like they were pulled directly from the game. The Rapier fighters flown by the humans are easily the ugliest designs I've ever seen for a spaceship. The fighters flown by their enemies, the Kilrathi, looked like they were stolen directly from the design for Batman's plane. The big capital ships were completely forgettable in design too, pretty much shapeless. Don't forget the Kilrathi themselves. I'm struggling to think of a design for an alien that looked worse than these did. I'm sure there was one but I can't think of it at the moment.

This is supposed to be science fiction. That would indicate some degree of science was present here. You would be very wrong. For instance, why do the fighters drop after taking off from the flight deck? This would make sense if taking off from an aircraft carrier on a planet but in space it doesn't make sense. Another good one is when the Tigerclaw is hiding from the Kilrathi ships. Everybody on the bridge is shushed so that the enemy ship won't hear them. Last time I checked, sound doesn't carry in a vacuum. They couldn't possibly be heard. I got the impression that the producers watched too many sub movies before making this.

So let's review. It has a bad plot, bad acting, bad special effects, and bad designs. Did I miss anything?

- John Shea