Wing Commander (PG-13) 1/2* Starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows Directed by Chris Roberts A Review by Frankie Paiva
There are many things that we’ve learned from computers. There are also many ways in which computers are helping people live their lives today. E-mail, instant messages, and 3-D heavy games are now a part of everyday life for most people in the country. Game designers have come out with some pretty classic games such as Starcraft, Warcraft, EverQuest, and Wing Commander in the past couple of years. While Starcraft might make a good movie, Wing Commander doesn’t. The only thing I can come up with is that 20th Century Fox must have gotten together and said, “We have a lot of computers. So let’s make a movie based off of a computer game, include bad computer generated effects, and make the characters have the dimension of their PC game counterparts.� That’s the only thing I can possibly think of that they must have been thinking because this film is easily one of the worst movies of the year.
Christopher Blair (Prinze Jr.) has an encrypted CD with information pertaining to the destruction of a ship by the evil Kilrahti, an alien race that wasn’t to be dominant of the entire galaxy. Kilrathi are strange looking wolf-type creatures who walk around in rooms with lots of fog and speak in techno font subtitles. When Blair and his friend Todd Marshall (Matthew Lillard, who once again proves that he cannot act) get assigned to help beat the Kilrathi, they become a fighter on the ship.
So a bunch of space stuff that doesn’t really have any significance happens, and then more of it happens, and then more until we really don’t care much about what’s happening on screen. Most of the shots are of bad computer created ships leaving, taking off, and firing, always hitting their target. Then for some reason, Freddie has to leave his girl behind when she has to eject from her space plane. This of course is right before he has to make the jump that determines what happens in the end of the movie. (You will ask yourself why he has to do this, you will also ask yourself why you ever wanted to see this movie.) So he's up there in space worried and wondering whether his love will be dead or alive when he comes home. I know, I just gave away what happens in the end, but trust me, you won’t care.
The film contains horrible acting by everyone, there isn't one single exception, none, zero, nada. This isn’t to say it’s entirely the cast’s fault, Matthew Lillard is giving some pretty bad lines, and Freddie Prinze doesn’t have much to do. I think that I found the most compelling and interesting character to be Mr. Obutu, (Hugh Quarshie) an African-American ship navigator person, and that’s only because of his name. The effects aren’t very good at all, and the action scenes don’t build any suspense, so we don’t really care about the characters. Besides, the script is filled with so many stereotypes (the captain who doesn’t believe everyone else, the good-hearted bad girl) that you know what’s going to happen from about the 35 minute point. If you love the game you will be EXTREMELY disappointed. Heck, if you saw it in the theaters, at least the new Star Wars trailer was shown before it. That might make the experience a bit less painful. But if you consider renting it on video, (what the heck is wrong with you?!) I seriously recommend that you seek help because Wing Commander gets 1/2 a *.
The Young-Uns: The film contains sci-fi action violence and a suggestive after sex scene. Good Age 12 & Up
A Review by Frankie Paiva The Teenage Movie Critic E-Mail me at SwpStke@aol.com Visit my website at http://www.homestead.com/teenagemoviecritic/mainpage.html
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