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Wing Commander (1999)

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322 comments in total

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34 out of 46 people found the following comment useful :-
It's really not that bad..., 13 May 1999

Author: Tim Laird from Grand Rapids, MI

Well, I've seen it twice now. I'm sure that says something. The one thing that I told myself as I went into the theater was "This isn't the game". Too many people were expecting Mark Hammil, or Biff from Back to the Future, and were miffed that the movie didn't include them, or anyone that looked like them. So far, I haven't heard anyone say complain that Val Kilmer or George Clooney didn't LOOK like Michael Keaton; the portrayal of their character is a different story...

I'll admit, the movie had a cookie-cutter plot. Young guy doesn't realize his potential, young guy is mocked, best friend stands up for him, young guy saves the day. That, and the standard "Have someone how loves and loses, and someone who falls in love at the end." But, then again, how many movies have been made that have a cookie cutter plot?

I was quite impressed with the acting. I'll admit, I haven't been a big fan of the teen slasher movies, so this was my first experience at seeing a lot of these guys. The young Blair was portrayed exactly as I would have expected, not too sure of himself, too willing to scurry into a corner rather than face confrontation. Maniac was great; much better than the poor portrayal in the last 3 iterations of the video game. I mean, let's face it, Maniac's character was completely re-done in WC3, to make him exactly like Biff. And Paladin was excellent. Not anything like the Paladin of the games (it took a while to get used to a non-scottish Paladin), but a very good, dark, but fatherly figure.

The effects were incredible, especially when you consider the (relatively) meager budget the film was done on. Yeah, the NavCom looked like a car battery, and the Kilrathi were lacking. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the original intent was to NOT show the Kilrathi at all; someone decided this would be too artistic of a move, and created some cheesy looking aliens at the last minute.

My favorite aspect of the movie, though, was how it abandons the standard "Everything is bright and pretty and technological in Sci-Fi". The ships were beat on. The cruisers looked like they had to be held together with bailing wire. The bridges of the vessels were dark, cramped, and simple. The ships shot bullets, rather giving us bright and technical laser beams. Also, humanity wasn't portrayed as being perfect; there were factions, and racism, and everything else that we experience on earth today.

I'm just waiting for the DVD...

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22 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
Not as bad as everyone says it is... but not as good either, 30 June 2002

Author: Oreolove from Yardley, PA

I was intrigued, after hearing many different points of views on this movie, to go see it. So I go to this used tape store, (why rent it for $5 when you can buy it for $2?) and buy it. I just wanted to see which side I agreed with. Most people that stated their opinions, said that this movie was a waste of time. Other people said it was the best movie they've ever seen, but I'm guessing they were fans of the video game or the 1977 version of this movie, both of which I've never seen. To go straight to the point and make it easy for those who don't know whether to see it or not, I'll let you decide for yourself based on my opinion. So to make it simple I'll just say the good and bad stuff about it.

Bad Stuff:

~Freddie Prinze Jr. sucks at acting. There's no other way to put it. I got very bored watching his one expression and monotone voice.

~Right from the beginning, I thought the music was terrible. Music is supposed to drag you in from the beginning and give you a sense of what's coming, (think "Jaws.") This just made me feel like I was about to see Captain America.

~The alien make-up was so extremely ridiculous that they looked like overgrown house pets. Not scary at all.

~I got tired of hearing people state the obvious. "Hey! I think something's wrong!" Well, aren't you the sharp one. The exploding bombs and loud "red alert" beeping didn't give it away, did it?

~The story had it's boring moments. There were parts I didn't follow and soon didn't even care, because I had gotten so lost by then it didn't matter.

~*This may or may not be a downside* I wasn't sure if the accents in this movie were taken from the video game or original, but it was way too weird. We had a Scottish guy, a ton of Englishmen, Americans, and some Asians. How did they all get on this one ship?

Good Stuff:

~Matthew Lillard did a fabulous job. I'm so used to seeing him act like an a**hole, (no offense, think "Scream.") that I wasn't expecting the serious performance he gave. It blew me away how serious he had to be in some scenes, and he pulled it off beautifully. (Although I gave the movie 5 stars, I would like to give his performance a 10.)

~The plotline, although confusing, did have it's certain interesting moments. I don't know which came first, Starship Troopers or this, but I have a feeling one of them is a rip-off of the first. However, it certainly had it's moments that put you in suspense.

~The special effect were great. It reminded me a lot of Star Wars. And the battle scenes were exciting.

~The rest of the cast didn't do too bad a job of acting. I was able to feel sorry for most of them.

I gave this movie a 5. If you have nothing better to do, I suggest you watch it. I certainly have seen worse, (read my review of "Jeepers Creepers.") If you liked "Starship Troopers" this is a movie for you. However, if you want something more out of a Sci-Fi movie of this sort, I suggest "Pitch Black." *****/10

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27 out of 42 people found the following comment useful :-
No, it isn't that bad. It is worse., 20 May 2005

Author: mentalcritic from Southern Hemisphere

Have you ever heard the expression "so stupid it is brilliant"? Well, you will see plenty of stupidity on offer here. So much of it, in fact, that you will begin to understand where the expression "so bad that it is awesome" comes from. Forget about Mortal Kombat, or even Resident Evil: Apocalypse. This is the film that video game adaptations get their reputation from. Every error of film-making you can think of, and even some you can't, is committed here. So many acting careers die here that the film should have been called Career Holocaust. You can bet that many members of the support cast neglect to mention this effort when discussing their CVs. About the only cast member who seems to have recovered from being in this abomination is Tchéky Karyo, and I am sure even he would rather forget this one. Incidentally, since when do you cast an actor with a French accent as thick as pea soup to play a character who was known in the early video games for having a Scottish accent so broad that it cemented the games reputation as a collection of stereotypes. Incidentally, Angel was supposed to be the French accent.

But this is all pure digression. The cast's collective heart was in it, and the crew did the best job they could, but the direction is so weak that the film winds up looking like it was intended to form the cutscenes of a video game. No explanation for the technology on show is offered. No reference to the time in which the film takes place is offered. Many references place the film in the time just after the declaration of war against the Kilrathi. But the scenario being depicted shows the Kilrathi imminently approaching Earth, which was one of the available scenarios in the third video game, which in turn is set decades into the war. Not to mention the stealth technology, which is introduced some years into the war, and yet the most prominent fighters of the Terran confederation look like rejected designs for World War II aircraft with shower nozzles stuck to their fronts.

The spacecraft design leads me to believe that members of the crew might be at least half right when they say that the problem with this film is the budget. In a time when science-fiction theatre was costing upwards of a hundred million per film, a miniscule thirty million was spent on this production. It shows. Shots of the main enemy in anything other than spacecraft form are rare, and when we do finally get to see the Kilrathi, they look more like big turds than humanoid cats. In one memorable sequence, we get to see a wrecked space fighter, with its pilot still within, pushed off the runway by a futuristic bulldozer that seems to grip the tarmac using the traditional wheel arrangement. In zero gravity, mind you. Of course, the runway could have gravity wells, or the bulldozer could have magnetically-charged wheels, but this is something the director or the screenwriter is supposed to explain to the audience. Very little explanation of anything, even why the Pilgrims are so space-savvy, is offered. There is basically a whole lot of tell and very little show.

Speaking of the Pilgrims, a subplot is added to this film that states the original Human explorers of space were a group dubbed the Pilgrims, who began to renounce their Human qualities. Apparently, a war started between the Pilgrims and the rest of Humanity, with the present Terran Confederation beset by a severe prejudice against Pilgrims. This is all well and fine, but it adds nothing to the actual plot, and only muddies the waters as to what the Humans are fighting about. All it really serves to do is give our central hero a Luke Skywalker sort of quality, and not a very convincing one at that. The idiotic game the Terran pilots play that dead pilots basically never existed flies right in the face of every convention set in the original video games. And it isn't like the crew have the excuse of not having played the games, because the director is the same guy who oversaw their creation. All this turns out to be is a very stupid attempt at a creative plot arc that, like the Pilgrim element, has no bearing upon the story whatsoever.

Unlike most of the rotten films I have commented about lately, I gave Wing Commander a one out of ten. Watching the cast, respectable otherwise or no, trying to chew their way through boot-like dialogue is pure comedy gold. Realising that the director expects us to feel scared of these gigantic turd monsters he calls the Kilrathi is even funnier. Therefore, Wing Commander is not just so bad it is good. It is so stupid it is utterly brilliant.

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23 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
Wow....this sucks, 9 July 2004

Author: x49ers16

First of all, the games in the Wing Commander series are some of the best video games I've ever played. Technology has gotten to the point where these games look dated and the full motion video seems impractical, but the story lines and combat sequences are amazing. If anyone has the opportunity to play these games and hasn't do yourself a favor and do it. That said...

This movie is ridiculous and the storyline might just as well be from a 1950's B movie. The dialogue is awful, the acting worse, and the supposedly futuristic spacecraft looked like they were bought from a studio auctioning off props from old World War II movies. The director, who happens to have designed the games, apparently thought that it would be cool to throw his story lines from the games out the window in favor of some World War II allegory. If I wanted to see World War II, I would've put in my "Saving Private Ryan" DVD and not watched this crap on basic cable.

The characters are extremely well crafted in the game series, well, for a video game series anyway. Here, they come off as a bunch of tired clichés. Also, I take issue with the fact that Blair, the main character, is some kind of chosen one with special powers. The Wing Commander games gave us characters who were normal people forced into an extraordinary situation, something direly lacking in the genre of science fiction. In other words, there were no mythical "Pilgrims" or other hocus pocus like there are in the movie. I wouldn't mind if it was well done but it just feels tacked on for no good reason.

Speaking of the Kilrathi, its not even discussed in the film why the Humans are at war with them or what they are. Instead of the ten foot tall, menacing, tiger creatures from the games they look like hamsters on steroids. Also, one of the best characters from the games, the evil kilrathi prince thrakath (in the games Thrakath is a cross between hanibal lectar and josef stalin), is not in the movie, leaving it without a strong villain.

Now, of course, as a fan of the games I'm a little bitter that this movie is one of the worst that I've ever seen. But I know a horrible movie when I see one, and this movie is pretty much unwatchable whether you've played the games or not. Honestly, if you're in the mood for sci fi and if you see it anywhere, just ignore it and watch Star Wars again.

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17 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Trust your part-Pilgrim instincts and steer clear!, 23 November 2001

Author: La Gremlin from Boston, MA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I know this guy who works at a multiplex and is a movie maniac. He insists that "Wing Commander" is the worst movie ever made, so when I saw that SciFi Channel was going to air it this week, I thought, "Oh, good! I will get to see it for free and see if it's everything my friend promises it is, because I've got a perverse obsession with bad movies!"

I will tell you how much I... well, I suppose the word is "enjoyed"... "Wing Commander" by describing my favorite part of the movie for you.

The setting is a big war in outer space between Earthlings and some aliens called the Kilrathi (more about them later), and most of the action we are chiefly concerned with takes place on a big spaceship that is something like an aircraft carrier. The hero's annoying best friend and his sort-of-girlfriend have disobeyed the leader of their team and, thanks to Cosmic Revenge, the sort-of-girlfriend dies when she crashes her little spaceship into the landing pad thing on the big ship. Now, this is supposed to be the big, dramatic sad part. We cut from a scene where the hero's annoying best friend is crying and begging to save his sort-of-girlfriend, to a scene where the sort-of-girlfriend's ship is being pushed by a little snowplow off the runway thing of the big ship.

In the middle of Outer Space.

In Zero Gravity.

I suppose there's some B.S. about there being big magnets or something lining the runway so that the ships can't just float away. But, you know, that's something that's supposed to be the screenplay writers' responsibility to tell us.

My second favorite part is when we finally see the Kilrathi for the first time. At about the forty-five minute mark, it occurred to me that we don't even know who or what the Kilrathi are. We only know that they're at war with Earth and that they hate humans. But for the first full hour and a half or so, we don't even know what a Kilrathi looks like.

Well, the Kilrathi end up being something like an anthropomorphic Mr. Bigglesworth.

And they really like fog machines. When the hero and his buddies invade the Kilrathi ship, the whole place is choked with green fog.

Oh, and for all this, we never find out why they hate humans.

I came up with a theory. The Kilrathi are the descendants of a bunch of hairless cats who were sent in a probe many years ago to a strange planet. This planet was highly irradiated, and the cats were sent there to see if Earthlings could survive on it. Well, the radiation made the cats evolve very quickly, and eventually their descendants began to look more and more humanoid. They built some spaceships and went to war against humanity, to avenge the fact that the humans never remembered to clean out their grandparents' litter boxes. As for the green fog, that's to remind all the Kilrathi of the awful stench their ancestors had to suffer when their litter was left unchanged.

But, again, this is the screenwriter's job.

And I'm not even going to start on the whole "Pilgrim" thing.

"Wing Commander" gets a three, because of it's parody value and because it isn't as bad as my friend promised but it's close. VERY close. Essentially, this is the kind of movie that "Starship Troopers", as a *very* small part of it's agenda, set out to parody. Go watch that movie instead. It's a great date movie.

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Strictly By-The-Numbers Space Opera/Coming of Age Potboiler, 27 August 2005

Author: lemon_magic from Wavy Wheat, Nebraska

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

It's easy to forget the fact that "Wing Commander" is a decent film with professional level acting, writing and production values -even if this is strictly by-the-numbers hackwork - until you see a really dumb movie in the Sci Fi Space Opera genre such as "Fatal Conflict","Star Crash" or "Message From Space". Compared to Grade D efforts like those turkeys, "Wing Commander" is at least smooth and easy to take and offers enough eye candy for the fan boy who can't get enough of his space fighters, laser beams and alien races.

But in comparison to the Big Boys of the genre ("Star Wars", the "Star Trek" franchise) or even under-sung classics ("Enemy Mine","The Last Starfighter", etc), "Wing Commander" is a nothing more than a wanna-be.

Almost every story element and character of "Wing Commander" seems to be lifted whole from other, more original efforts. The Kilrathi seem to be taken directly from Larry Niven's "Man/Kzin War" stories. The Prinze character is a Rent-A-Center version of Luke Skywalker. His hotheaded best friend is an amalgamation of every sidekick EVER in Space Opera along with quite a bit of "Mongoose" from "Top Gun" thrown in. His flight commander is the female character from "Top Gun" and VERY little else. One of the battle scenes (where the Tiger Claw must hide from the Kilrathi fleet) is a blatant rip-off/tribute to every WWII submarine flick ever made. And the list goes on.

There is "A" level professional level talent involved here (and yes, I count Freddie Prinze as a "A" level, even if I don't care for his screen persona), but they all seem to be in in purely for in it the paycheck. Seriously, how can you have Jurgen Prochnow, David Warner and David Suchet - each of whom have carried entire movies - and not produce something memorable? The answer: "Paycheck." How can you have talented, interesting character actors like Lillard and Karyo in almost every scene and completely waste them? I don't know, but I suspect: "Paycheck."

Even as hackwork, though, the movie is OK...kind of the Space Opera equivalent of the dozens of "Shaw Brothers/Golden Harvest" martial arts pieces which the USA Network used to air on "Kung Fu Theater". Uncritical fans of the genre will still find all the standard elements they expect from these movies, and a few polished touches here and there:The clunky, bristly designs of the space ships makes them look like heavy duty battle-wagons, not space age toys. The script does generate a little suspense here and there with its depictions fleets manoeuvrings to get the best advantage. David Warner and David Suchet are incapable of delivering a dull or inept line. Tcheky Karyo's light touch and charming accent are almost enough to save any scene he is in. Lillard is his usual fire-hose of manic energy, even if his character is a complete tool. The depiction of the Kilrathi warships popping one by one out of the 'warp hole', only to be torn to pieces by weapons of the human fleet, has a nice heft and rhythm to it that is viscerally satisfying.

But whatever you do, do NOT come into "Wing Commander" expecting anything new or fresh, or even very impressive.

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Okay, I'll Come Clean..., 22 December 1999
Author: Shield-3 from Kansas City, MO, USA

I finally gave into my curiosity and rented "Wing Commander" last night... and I found myself kinda... you know... liking it.

It is NOT great cinema or great science fiction -- everyone likes to climb all over this movie for scientific errors and not being close enough to the Wing Commander games. Well, scientific inaccuracies don't bug me (I'm an English major!), and I never played the Wing Commander game. Maybe that's the secret to enjoying this movie -- if you take it completely on its (meager) merits, it's not all that bad. It's nowhere near as good as classics like "Star Wars" or even somewhat similar films like "The Last Starfighter" or "Starship Troopers," but it entertained me. I dunno, sometimes you don't need your horizons challenged, you just want to sit back and watch aliens get blow'd up real good, you know?

I consider this a guilty pleasure.

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
it's ok..., 13 March 1999

Author: Paul-Gabriel Wiener

the movie was about what i expected... they obviously blew the entire budget on effects. amusingly, wc 3 and wc 4 (the games) had better casts than the movie (Freddie Pinze Jr vs Mark Hammil, Mathew Lillard vs Thomas "Biff Tannon" Wilson, Tchéky Karyo vs John Rhys-Davies, and David Warner vs Malcolm McDowell).

the plot had some holes, the most dramatic moments came off as cheesy, and there were a few continuity issues with the games that will probably bother the more avid fans (skipper missles being used before the first game, even though they weren't introduced until wc2, bossman being dead before blair sets foot on the tiger's claw, etc).

on the upside, the special effects were pretty good. a few years ago (before the rise of mass numbers of special effects movies) i would have considered them outstanding. the fighters (almost entirely rapiers, and a few broadswords) have a wonderfully unique "world war 1 in space" feel. the rapiers, however, look uncannily similar to A-10 Thunderbolt II "Tankkiller" "Warthogs."

the best review i've heard came from a kid as we were leaving the theater. he was having trouble articulating himself, but finally settled on something like "that was the coolest humans vs futuristic aliens movie i've ever seen!"

basically, if you're looking for a fun mindless (and that is a very important word) space combat movie, this is a good choice. if you want a better cast, a better plot, and some interaction, skip the movie and get yourself a copy of one of the games.

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
A bold movie based on a computer game. But does it do the game justice?, 13 March 1999

Author: Axyom from Minnesota

This pioneer film from Chris Roberts takes the classic Computer game world of Wing Commander, and gives it a new edge that is exhilarating and inventive. Unfortunately, fans of the computer game series will find that there are changes in this movie, many of which are confusing. Like movies that are made from novels, the transition often leaves out important elements because novels extend far beyond the 90-120 minute boundary. And the PC games are no exception, spanning 5 games that each took several days if not weeks to finish.

In this movie, the Kilrathi get very little screen time, and the time that they do get does nothing to represent their warrior race which is intricate and compelling as much as the Terrans (humans). In fact, they look nothing like the Video Game's image of them. Instead, they are portrayed much like the BUGS in Starship Troopers, as emotionless and cultureless as insects, with no purpose and no agenda except to destroy.

Also, the technology used in this film is far different than the game's, creating a confusing use of fighter crafts, flight gear, and much more for the video game players. There are no lasers, just mass-drivers and torpedoes. In fact, the battles felt much like they were being fought underwater instead of outer-space. In one scene, a battered ship is pushed off a platform only to have it drop like a rock, in outer space. And it was disheartening to hear the bangs and booms in outer space where there is no sound! I was hoping the filmmakers could have been more creative,…the sound of panicked breathing and heartbeats over deathly silence as the battle ensues, perhaps?

Another confusing transition for WC fans was the whole idea of the ‘Pilgrim' race, which was never mentioned in the computer game series. And the biggest, and perhaps saddest loss in transition were the beloved actors of Mark Hamill, Tom F. Wilson, and Malcolm McDowell, who breathed life into the WC world along with a superb supporting cast. Instead, their roles are filled by younger hip-hop hormonal teen idols, who not only did not know what they did last summer, but don't care.

All confusions aside, this was a decent first step for the Wing Commander series onto the big screen because it sucessfully introduces the basic elements of the Wing Commander world. For anyone who liked the movie, I recommend the games, which are enthralling and deeper in character, storyline, and excitement. Well, Wing Commander IV was anyway. V was dangerously close to being as storyless as this movie. A Critique for another time…

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
A fun ride, not a serious one. A must for all fans of the game., 14 March 2004

Author: morbelle from UK

The film has been critically panned and it bombed at the cinemas. But it's actually a pretty good film. Yes it isn't technically the best, nor is it scientifically plausible. And for devotees of the games it kinda screws with history, but for all that it is a good ride. You watch it and appreciate it. Saffron Burrows is great. David Warner and David Suchet excel in their (small) roles. It's a shame John Rhys-Davis and Mark Hamill don't reprise their roles, but their replacements do well enough.

You get caught up in the story, and the visual effects are fantastic, aided by good acting with the actors working well together.

So overall I would recommend this film. Don't expect it to be fantastic, but just enjoy it. It's a fun film and a worthy addition to Wing Commander lore.

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