Wing Commander (1999)

When I was a child I remember catch every episode of Battlestar galactica watching it again every one as I never see it before. I never been so many times (5) in a cinema watching the same movie but with the same feeling when you discover a treasure, one of this films or shows (like galactica) with great characters, maybe not so good special effects. What's makes Wing commander a good underrated movie? The story about the war in the heart of the warriors, in this case Blair (before becomes the Wing Commander)and Maniac Marshall have to fight not only against the kilrathi, they have a little dark war with the own crew of the battlecruiser Tigerclaw, where the pain of the last civil war is still pounding in every heart. With this movie Chris Roberts explore a new vision of the space colonization(the pilgrim war) and at the same time try to bring feeling of the First world war as a model of this new war on the new frontier. Even when the acting is not so great Tcheky Karyo and Jurgen Prochnow, makes a good work and the soundtracks is wonderful. But this kind of movies it's only for those who wanna watch something more adult than star wars.

Fmovies: I was pleasantly surprised by this movie after reading the bad prior reviews. It is a good combat science fiction movie. The special effects were really good considering the budget of the film. The acting was decent, and the story was well written. The only problem I had was the poor effects of the Kilrathi, they did not look good at all. Fans of the wing commander games should go see this movie with an open mind. No Mark Hammil, but the movie is not any lesser with him missing. See this film, you will like it. 10/10

A lot of negative reviews have been given about Wing Commander which I find slightly upsetting. People have been saying the plot was extremely weak and that the Kilrathi monsters were very poorly done. A few comments have also been made as to the quality of acting in the movie. The movie at this point has earned a 4.7/10 IMDb user's rating which I feel is undeservingly low. I will not try to defend the movie as a "great and timeless" movie, for it was not. However, considering a $27 million budget, the movie was very well presented. I mean, to release a Sci-Fi movie, which relies very heavily on costly special effects, for such a small amount of money must have been a very difficult task. Look at Titanic, it was a romance and the special effects involved recreating a Ship and making it Sink, now granted they were good effects and Titanic was a good movie, but it also had a budget of $200 million. As for the actors I feel they did a superb job portraying the characters, especially Matthew Lillard who gave "Maniac" a lovable character and portrayed the original Maniac from the video game series very well. The plot, though not very strong, had enough flow to give the movie a sense of direction and having played the game, I understood the concepts easily. Another point not many people have touched upon is how Chris Roberts used many tactical elements from the gaming series. Involving torpedoes and the use of bombers to attack capital ships, and jump points as opposed to simple "warp" or "hyperdrive". In this, sense he kept very true to the game series. Before watching the movie, I did not really expect much from the special effects with the knowledge of the low budget but surprisingly the effects were very, very well done (except for a few close ups of the Rapiers when you can tell they are using a model with a computer generated background). The Kilrathi were poorly done but there is not enough exposure of them to take too much away from the movie, again budget constraints have hurt them in this department. However, the dogfights, capital ships, battle scenes, and backgrounds were quite stunning and had me very surprised. I think the movie provides a good opportunity for franchise possibilities if done right. Also keep in mind that this was Chris Robert's debut on the big screens and if the Wing Commander games have taught us anything at all is that Chris adapts well and learns from his mistakes. If there is a Wing Commander 2 (The movie of course) look for it to be quite a step up from this Wing Commander, especially if they get a bigger budget. I think the Wing Commander concept has great potential and after all is considered I think an excellent job was done on this movie. In comparison to other movies in this genre I would give it a 7.3/10

Wing Commander fmovies. 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

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The graphics weren't up to say Episode1 standards, but were convincing enough (and I loved the raspy engine noise for the Rapiers). The acting was what I've come to expect from these younger American actors (as in good).

I'd say from an objective view point it's a good film. A bit lacking in certain areas, but certainly enjoyable.

I say "objective" simply because I have never been exposed to the hugely popular game series, so I was seeing this as a film, not as a spin off (in which case I'm sure it would come across worse, simply because when you're used to one set of actors portraying your favourite characters a new team will never fit the bill).

Overall not a bad way to spend my Wednesday evening.

First of all, I avoided this movie when it was first released because of the bad reviews. I never played the game so I had no idea what to expect.

I should know better...

I saw this movie for the first time on DVD, sat down with a low expectation, and cranked up my Dolby Digital 5.1 sound system. Was I ever BLOWN away! It was more than I expected and the characters were not as "forgettable" as some critics said. I found the performances of Tcheky Kanyo (Paladin) and David Warner (Admiral Tolwyn) were memorable. Saffron Burrows (Angel) was great, except that she handled her "crisis" at the end rather badly. But overall the movie was a treat. I would recommend it for anyone to at least rent this and check it out!