WING COMMANDER

It's like Battlestar Galactica -- in space!

I've played this game (poorly) several times, and I've always felt that the plot was overly complicated and poorly presented. Also, the characters are weak and uninvolving, and the villains appear phony and puppet-like.

Guess what?  The movie is completely faithfull to the PC game (not too surprising, seeing that it was directed by the same guy that directed the game)!

The story is about how cranky aliens called Kilrathi capture the Earth fleet's artificial intelligence navigation doohicky, allowing them a free ticket to skip down to our planet. Earth's only hope is with the crew of the one battleship left in the invaders' way - and mainly with mouth-breathing young fighter pilot Freddie Prinze, Jr. Annoying perennial sidekick Matthew Lillard is also on hand, as is Saffron Borrows as the sultry title character.Freddie takes center stage due to his inherited talents from his "Pilgrim" mother, much to the chagrin of "Pilgrim"-hating Jurgen Prochnow, who was cast mainly to make us think we're watch Das Boot. Tcheky Karyo plays a secret military commander who fills in Freddie on his Pilgrim heritage, while making us think we're watching ... um, The Bear.

This is a pretty good space opera, though nothing that special - mainly it reminds of one of the many sci-fi films that aped Star Wars in the late '70s-'80s, only with better f/x. Speaking of f/x, the only innovation I noticed here is that the crew responsible (PD Peter Lamont and Digital Anvil) chose to present their shots the way they'd really look in deep space - that is to say, very dark with lighting limited to what would actually be available. On the other, hand the Kilrathi look like refugees from Muppets In Space.

Space ships; zap guns; hostile aliens; big explosions.

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