Wing Commander (DVD)

...cut sequences from within the Wing Commander games and when you rummage around the net for reviews and find it compared unfavourably to the likes of Judge Dredd and Battlestar Gallactica you’d be a fool to watch it. I am that fool. I knew the cast list, read the reviews, saw the 3.7/10 rating on the imdb, ignored the warnings and sat through all 100 painful minutes of this sci-fi crap last night...

As a little background for the uninitiated ...
...and does just that. Watching Wing Commander then becomes the equivalent of watching someone else play a computer game during the ‘action’ sequences(and I use the term ‘action’ loosely) and all dialogue feels like a poorly acted cut-scene. It ain’t good.

The movie plays out in space, never once touching down on the planet Earth the battle is being fought for. We spend our time on some huge battle cruisers which are obviously meant to ... more

When you see a movie which has assembled the combined talents of Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard for it’s main characters then you really don’t need to read a review of it to know the kind of cinematic tripe what you are in store for. Equally, when you find a movie is based on a video game you know it’s not exactly going to be high art either. Worse is to come when you discover the director has no previous experience OTHER than directing cut sequences from within the Wing Commander games and when you rummage around the net for reviews and find it compared unfavourably to the likes of Judge Dredd and Battlestar Gallactica you’d be a fool to watch it. I am that fool. I knew the cast list, read the reviews, saw the 3.7/10 rating on the imdb, ignored the warnings and sat through all 100 painful minutes of this sci-fi crap last night...

As a little background for the uninitiated it should be pointed out that the “Wing Commander” series is a very successful franchise of video games in which the Earth is in conflict with an alien race and you take control of a spaceship and fly missions to obliterate your enemies. There is quite a strong storyline running throughout which outlines the history and the politics of the war and detailed battle strategies and actors such as the likes of Mark Hamill(Luke Skywalker in Star Wars), Malcolm McDowell and erm, Ginger Lynn (grin) have graced the cut scenes in between which are incidentally also directed by the director of this movie. Therein lies the problem sadly, because whereas other movies based upon computer games have recognised the need to actually do some a little different other than to extend the 2 minute cut-scenes out to a 90 minute movie, Chris Roberts misses the point and does just that. Watching Wing Commander then becomes the equivalent of watching someone else play a computer game during the ‘action’ sequences(and I use the term ‘action’ loosely) and all dialogue feels like a poorly acted cut-scene. It ain’t good.

The movie plays out in space, never once touching down on the planet Earth the battle is being fought for. We spend our time on some huge battle cruisers which are obviously meant to have a submarine feel about them with the occasional torpedo launch at the enemy battle cruisers and foraying runs and attacks by our heroes and villains in smaller craft which bear a resemblance to broken down WW2 fighters...and unfortunately are about as sluggish as well. Someone, somewhere forgot the idea that the future ought to have advanced technology beyond this level and failed to appreciate that for action sequence dogfights to be exciting they need a little ‘pace’ about them. But anyway...I got a whole submarine movie feel about things, not helped by our crusty old captain pawing over old stellar maps like an old sea dog, Jürgen Prochnow from “Das Boot” getting a role, the use of sonar(or something like it) for searching and...well it goes on. It’s all very ‘naval’ feeling which wouldn’t be a bad thing were it not to feel so...wrong!

Anyway, we’re told it’s the 25th century and the Earth is at war with a race called the Kilrathi who won’t stop until the Earth and all its peoples are obliterated. The swines! Well, not ‘swine’ maybe because they look more like scruffy catty lizard things straight out of the Jim Henson studios, but they’re the enemy scum for what it’s worth. The movie centres solely around the good guys, we get to see virtually nothing from the alien point of view, but rather focus upon a couple of rookie pilots - the half-breed Blair(Prinze Jr.) and Marshall(Lillard) - and their pilot sidekicks to give us a kind of teen soap opera in space interspersed with combat action. There’s not much to say about the plot to be fair, two fall in love, one kills a friend by accident, there’s some clumsy attempt to pass commentary on racism with a ludicrous allegory and laughable attempts at character building and the rest is CGI action of the lowest order.

In all honesty, I can’t even imagine fans of the computer game having any interest whatsoever in this movie. The sets are appalling, looking like the kind of thing you would have seen in Buck Rogers not something made years later and the alien race are simply hilarious to look at - fortunately you only see a few rare glimpses of them, but they look like a bizarre hybrid of the trash can grouch from Sesame Street, Larry the Lizard and the family pet . Not exactly the most fearsome of enemies, probably the only scary thought of them invading earth is they’re probably not house trained and might cough up a furball on your Axminster rug. Let’s just say the special effects are none too special eh? The computer generated action sequences which quickly come to characterise the movie completely lack any form of excitement or tension, not least because it’s virtually impossible to pick out the difference between the Kilrathi craft and the Earth ones...and also because you’ll be hoping the very cheesy main cast members get shot to bits anyway.

Freddie Prinze Jr. is consistently crap in his movies, we all know that, but here he puts in a performance which has to be seen to be believed. Aside from a dazzling smile he is so lacking in charisma and lifeless that within 10 minutes he has disappeared into the background and is quickly forgotten...maybe that’s a plus point though? Yes, it’s a plus point, even if he is meant to be one of the lead characters. On the negative side then you’ve got Matthew Lillard who does goofy really well but who I can only see as Shaggy now after the Scooby-Doo movie and Shaggy gunning down alien scum to save the planet doesn’t cut it. His interactions with Ginny Holder are amusing for a while but it’s fleeting. The entire cast are basically poor, not mis-cast because they are given NOTHING to work with here in a screenplay which consists of lines like a petulant “Oh like I care!” in response to a threat of court marshall and a catalogue of others which will have you laughing out loud in disbelief. It’s difficult to say I hated this movie because I laughed far more at this supposedly straight-laced movie than I did at the Matthew Perry/Elizabeth Hurley ‘comedy’ “Serving Sara” recently and if a movie can make you laugh for whatever reason then it’s gotta be worth another star or two.

Surely there is something to like here though? No not really, not in the sense of what it was meant to be anyway, but you can have a damn good laugh at it’s expense so it’s not all bad. You’ll learn that in the future we’ll be able to do all this jiggery-pokery in space but still navigate via paper maps, that if you push something out of the back of a spaceship it’ll drop like a stone(in what gravity??), that people wearing gloves can sense a map through their fingertips, Bagpuss will mutate and come back to conquer the Earth and loads more. In that sense, it’s great fun. Equally, if you are between the ages of 4 and 12 you might like it because that’s about the level of intellect behind the screenplay although the sexual themes it explores in it’s occasional bursts of violence earned it a certification of 12 in many countries(it was a PG in the UK but it’s worth bearing in mind).

The bottom line? Don’t watch it unless you’re desperate for a sci-fi fix and have an extraordinarily high tolerance for naffness.

I’ll leave you with the imdb’s memorable quote from the movie:

Forbes: You’ve got balls
Maniac: You should see ‘em
Forbes: Mine are bigger
Maniac: I’ve been told size doesn’t matter
Forbes: She lied

...and it doesn’t get much better than that.

Related Links

Unofficial fan site: http://www.users.nac.net/splat/wc/

The official movie site has been taken down, probably because the movie sunk without a trace within days of being released, but this is the best fan site I’ve personally come across. Here you’ll find the official trailer, storyboards, other reviews, background information to the movie and a whole lot more. It’s very well put together...just rather wasted considering the rather naff nature of the movie! Worth a look if it still sounds like fun though.

Massive Wing Commander Information site: http://www.wcnews.com/

It’s rather scary how much information there is on here, right down to linking through to ebay auctions for the latest closing Wing Commander related auctions of all things! There’s not much to say, if you need to know anything at all about Wing Commander, the games, the movie or any of the other spin-offs then you’ll find it here!
 

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