Okay, where as all the other video game adapted films on this site can be picked apart by me because I know the games they are adapted from, WING COMMANDER is the exception. Yes I know it odd that even I, the ever nimble thumbed Anubis God of Death and Video Gaming, has NOT played one of the big name starfighter games ever created, but hey, go fuck yourself, okay? So, though I cannot really say whether WING COMMANDER is a bad adaptation or not, I can confidently say that it is in fact a BAD movie none-the-less! Unlike most gamer flicks, this one features a bunch of obnoxious "young" and "fresh faced" stars... in other words they're a bunch of no talent hacks that will annoy you to the point of breaking all your old Monkees records, simple because you know annoying teen actors beget annoying teen actors beget massive brain hemorrhaging and you need to stop the cycle... sorry, the mescaline must be kicking in... Let's move on before I start hallucinating a miniature Peter O'Toole picking a fight with my Zippo.

In the far flung reaches of the future (the year 2654 to be precise), Earth has expanded far beyond it's previous boundaries, discovering new life forms inhabiting the worlds beyond our paltry little dairy galaxy. One such race would've been better left undiscovered: the nasty Klingon-ish reptile/feline creatures known as Kilrathi. In fact, the beasts open our film by attacking an Earth spacecraft and stealing some box that looks like a futuristic video game console... possibly Playstation 117? The device is actually called a NavCom, which is summed up as the ship's Artificially Intellectual navigating system, which happens to contain directions to Earth, including all the shortcuts and the cleanest rest stops! With this info, the Kilrathi have us by the balls, unless 2 rookies fresh out of the Starfleet Academy and their grizzled old Sensei type can make a cohesive unit with the crew of the military craft Tiger Claw and hold off the bad guys in time for the cavalry (lead by British B-actor man David Warner) to arrive.

Our salvation has a name, three of them actually. Our rookies are Christopher Blair (the ever empty-headed Freddy Prinze Jr.) and Todd Marshall (Matthew "at least he was good in SLC PUNK" Lillard), hot shot hero-types who... ah to Hell with it, it's the same concept as TOP GUN. As I said, with them comes the older and wiser teacher-type: James Taggart (Tcheky "I've been in a lot of movies but no one's heard of me thanks to my damn forgein name that all you American's are too dense and uncultured to remember" Karyo), who has a lot more in common with Blair than the goofy-eyed cretin realizes. Upon joining the crew of the Tiger Claw, Marshall's makin buddies and mackin hunnies until a confrontation between Blair and a crew member over the death of one of the Claw's former pilots makes big trouble for the new guys. Blair's shirt gets ripped and the Pilgrim cross he wears in revealed. After that, it's one big personal struggle to prove himself for the rest of Blair's time on the ship, as Pilgrims are often the target of ridicule by the majority of "normal" people. You know, they're unfairly scrutinized, like those today who are hassled for being Jewish, Chinese, or who enjoy Circus Peanuts... yes, I too know the hurt of prejudice and unfair judgment, and everyone looks at it like one big joke. Well, when people like me start getting dragged from Wal*Mart just for looking at a bag of those sweet sugary orange nuts and everyone laughs, just remember what happened to the Jews after they sat by while other races and nationalities were getting taken away by the Nazis before WW2. Yeah, we'll see how you like it when you're being gassed by the Fourth Reich of Walt Disney mascots and midgets in wooden shoes... sorry, Mescaline again.

Why are the Pilgrims hated so? Just like any other race hated by those not like them, it's some stupid bullshit. For those of you expecting me to give WING COMMANDER a long and drawn out review and tell you ever crappy detail about the film, then I'm sorry to let you down, but I'm gonna sum up the rest of the story in a couple sentences in ANIMAL HOUSE wrap-up ending style, so sing along. Blair winds up in love with his Wing Commander, Lt. something or other (yes, she's a chick, not a guy... shockingly enough considering everybody knows Freddy Pringles is a butt pirate), and after a tragic near-death experience, they end the film happily ever after. Marshall falls for this sassy black babe, but when they're bust trying to prove which has the bigger balls, she dies because of his immaturity and wise-assin'. Everybody hates him, including himself (with good reason, simply being in this film is reason enough if you ask me), but he gets over it and helps save the day. Blair's half-Pilgrim heritage is eventually accepted because of his acts of heroism and such. Between these 90210 moments there's some Kilrathi and Human space fights, which suck for the most part. Oh yeah, and the good guys win in the end. For anyone who's disappointed by this lousy review, well, now you know what it's like to watch WING COMMANDER. If you think I'm not devoted enough to my craft and blah blah blah, well, first you can bite the big scary hemorrhoids on my ass, then you can go off and make your own site, dedicated entirely to this fucking garbage! Bah.

To put it in cinematic terms, WING COMMANDER is like the George Lucas version of SCHOOL TIES. Just replace Brendan Frazer with Fred Pringles Jr., "Jewish" with "Pilgrim", and the football team with the starfighter fleet and there you go. Unfortunately, whereas Lucas would've used models or starfighters, WING COMMANDER uses some weak CGI of very sad looking ships. THEY LOOK LIKE GARBAGE PAILS WITH FINS! Oh, wait a minute, I forgot that THE PHANTOM MENACE was 97% CGI, even Samuel L. Jackson. So, maybe this really is just a George Lucas rendition of SCHOOL TIES after all! Also, they added in some of that MATRIX fashioned "stop time" camera trick stuff for a very brief scene, probably just because THE MATRIX did it before and they felt the need to rip them off too. On to other charges against the accused, the soundtrack was very downplayed, which is a bad thing. For the scenes where they tried to make everything dramatic, the music was so low you could hardly hear it. If you're not gonna make it noticeable, how about not making it at all ya dickheads! The one instrument I could hear was an overzealous Oboe that you could tell really had drive and tried to break away from the pack. So, for only the second time in my life, I salute the Oboe player. Now for an amusing quip: if you plan to watch this movie, I suggest you have a barf bag ready, not for the turbulence or "non-stop excitement", but just because it's bad enough to make you wretch. Forget it, I've wasted too much time on this already, I'm gonna go punch a polar bear in the face and see what happens. THAT should be cool on mescaline!

Sequels: If there is ever one, someone is going to get hurt...

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