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Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Having been a fan of the "Wing Commander" game franchise back in the day then it was with some anticipation that I sat down to watch "Wing Commander", although I had a gut feeling that I knew that it had a high possibility of being a poor movie experience.And once this 1999 movie ended, I must admit that you are left with a hollow feeling and a somewhat sour taste in your mouth. Director Chris Roberts didn't manage to capture the essence of the games, and the movie turned out to be a shallow experience and poor movie in general.The story in "Wing Commander" was adequate, albeit not super thrilling. But the movie was killed by the lack of convincing effects and the choice of acting talents. It just felt like you were watching a movie made for teenagers, given the actors and actresses they had opted to cast for the movie. And not even with talents such as David Warner and Jürgen Prochnow making appearances were director Chris Roberts able to salvage this movie.The fans of the game franchise will remember the Kilrathi as being menacing feline humanoids, but they are presented as something that resembles an over-sized gerbil in the movie, and do not really look like the feline creatures that were in the games. And that feature was really a hard pill to swallow and it really sent a low blow to the movie.If you were fan of the games, then stay well clear of the movie, because it is nowhere near to having captured the spirit and heart of the game franchise. If you are unfamiliar with the games, then this 1999 movie doesn't really offer anything that you can't find in other Sci-Fi movies."Wing Commander" manages to harvest a more than generous three out of ten stars from me, just because I wanted my love for the game franchise to go to the big screen.

Wing Commander (1999): Dir: Chris Roberts / Cast: Freddie Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard, Tchehy Karyo, Ginny Holder: One of the stupidest contraptions ever put to film. It is one of those fleet movies with commanders, lieutenants, Naval officers, etc. Title refers to the limited resources to being human and undertaking challenges such as flying. Freddie Prinze Jr. stars as a half breed whose father was a Naval officer and his mother was a Pilgrim. His only memory of them is through a cross necklace that he wears for good luck. It obviously doesn't work because if it did then he would be in a different movie. Director Chris Roberts is as bad as the screenwriter is with ideas. I have seen children create better art just by throwing a bowl of cheerios against the wall. I have seen paper airplanes with greater credibility than the air crafts presented here. Prinze Jr. leads the horrible casting as this half wit pilot. Matthew Lillard plays his idiotic best friend. Saffron Burrows plays the obvious romantic tease that has the personality of sheet metal. Tcheky Karyo shows up to yell commands and apparently look mean doing it. Ginny Holder plays a character who dies when the leads screw up. She can consider herself fortunate that she didn't have to subject herself to this crap longer. This film is an insult to the senses it eventually numbs. It is a flimsy Top Gun rip-off with all of the excitement of indigestion. Score: 1 / 10

It seems that there are a lot of people out there that never really liked this movie, but as far as I am concerned it wasn't all that bad. Granted it was based on a computer game in which Mark Hamil, among others, played starring roles, those obviously when the film came out minus Mark Hamil people were incredibly disappointed. Personally, which I had played the game and enjoyed it, I did not expect it to be identical to the game, and also noting that the creator of the Wing Commander franchise directed it, I at least knew that it was going to have the original creative juices flowing into it.Since Wing Commander is a space flight simulator where you fly space fighters around and shoot up Kilrathi, that is in effect was I was going to expect from this film as well, namely lots of dog fights between Kilrathi and Humans. Also the main characters from the game (and the only ones that I can remember were Paladin and Christopher Blair, though I suspect that there were a lot of others as well which I recognised from the game).The thing that I really appreciated about the film was that a lot of the craft had a very World War II feeling to them, especially the raptors, that basically looked like World War II fighter planes (without the propeller because propellers, and in fact jet engines, don't work in space). Unfortunately you don't see much of the Kilrathi, and when you do they are only briefly shown before they are gunned down, however what you do see are their ships. I guess this is because we are simply following the main characters, who are all humans, around and only being able to see what that see.As I said I liked this film, not only because it was science-fiction and had a fair share of dog fights, but also because of the way they created the setting. I also remember seeing this movie with a friend of my who was also a big fan of the games (though I only ever played one of them).

Space battles! Ah man, I can't ever get enough of them. Some of the coolest moments in film and TV have beautiful starfields and nebulae with giant starships and fast fighters blasting each other to hell with lasers, torpedoes, and other far-out weaponry. Cinema has been blessed with many great space battles in the Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Starship Troopers franchises. Unfortunately, that's as good as it gets; there aren't that many movies that really show space warfare, and I personally wish there were more. This is probably why I turn to Wing Commander once in a while.The sole appeal to Wing Commander will be its space battles and special effects. They aren't that great per se; the graphics are fairly low-tech and haven't aged well. Regardless, the actual battles are fairly cool, with some nicely colorful backdrops, cool-looking ships, and plenty of explosions and laser beams flying around everywhere.The rest of the movie is comprised of some of the purest and densest cheese. It's a light and fluffy film, full of playful banter and juvenile characters; it makes for an entertaining flick in its own right, but it does not leave any lasting impact, and will likely repulse many viewers.I've never played the original Wing Commander video games, but I have no doubt that they probably have a better story and more immersive universe than this film. This film covers a pretty standard story, with stuff we've seen before in shows like Battlestar Galactica. There's nothing much new to seeing space-faring pilots fighting aliens, getting involved with each other, breaking the rules, and inevitably having to make sacrifices. With the film's lightweight tone, none of it bears any weight. The film also never lets the audience get to know the characters beyond the surface level. We also never get to know much about the universe, aside from the fact that there are aliens, there are humans in spaceships, and they're at war.This film uses pretty standard photography and editing. Acting is nothing worth screaming about: Freddie Prinze Jr. looks and acts very juvenile, and Matthew Lillard even moreso. Saffron Burrows is easily the bright spot here, not only in terms of looks and that awesome accent of hers, but also in taking the role a little more seriously than everybody else. Writing is average at best. This production has pretty weak-looking sets, props, and costumes. The Kilrathi look especially awful toward the end, appearing like giant plastic cat-people. Special effects are used liberally - there's even one totally useless Matrix effect, where the camera spins around the characters while they're in slow-motion. As mentioned above, the space battles are cool, but still fairly cheap. Music is not bad though.Not a great film by any means, and certainly not the best space combat movie ever made. But in a genre that's rather lacking, I find Wing Commander fun. If you enjoy epic space combat like I do, then this is worth renting once.3/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Average | Film: Marginal)