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.

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.

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