Brits Rejoice!

In the quest for glory and pictures of really hot film stars, Skyfox bought a copy of a British magazine called Total Films, and whaddya know? It's got a WC Movie review inside it. Okay so it's a fairly typical review (you can read it below), but the really good part is the release date it mentions - 25th June! That gives the UK two release dates, 2nd July being the other. Which is it? Who knows, but July 2 can stay on the "Up and coming" section for now. The other really cool thing is the CD on the Total Films magazine has an all-new never-before-seen WC trailer, but because of some scary codec that it uses, we can't upload that right now. When I get my copy of the magazine tomorrow, I'll work on bypassing all that. For now, here is the wonderfully British review:

Release: 25 June (Cert 12)
Wing Commander

Sci-Fi War Movie, USA, 1999
Director: Chris Roberts
Distributor: 20th Century FOX
Starring: Freddie PRinze Jr, Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard, Tcheky Karyo, Jurgen Prochnow, David Suchet, David Warner
Running Time: 103 mins.

What's the story? Space, 2654: the Earth-defending Confederation is waging interstellar war against the nasty Kilrathi, who want death to all humans. The Kilrathi capture a super-special navigation thingy, which they're going to use to launch a direct attack on Plent Earth. But they don't reckon on the collective chutzpah of an elite team of young, pretty fighter pilots. Soon space is filled with computer-game inspired battle...

Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros and now Wing Commander. Will this game-to-movie madness ever end? Probably not - in fact, given the continuising popularity of pixellated action-babe Lara Croft, things are only going to get madder.

Still, at least Wing Commander is directed and written by the very man who developed the space-blasting original, which is good, right? Actually, no. Wing Commander looks like a computer game and everything about it is of computer game standard: the acting, the story, the dialogue...

To put it bluntly, creator Chris Roberts should have never given up the day job. He may have set out to turn his successful shoot-'em-up into a testosterone-fuelled sci-fi war flick, but the result is simply bland. The fight sequences are sporadic, and when they do occur, they hardly ignite the screen. Visually unsatisfying spaceships engage in pseudo-Star Wars dogfights while the pilots shout "Bogey!" at each other lots. The effects themselves are saggy and the 'scary' baddie aliens look like giant, lumbering fiberclass cats.

The rest of the, ahem, action takes place in dingy spaceship interiors where the troops shuffle about in tight sweaters and silly felt hats. The jargon-laden script squeezes in a few intriguing references to a godlike race called The Pilgrims, but this turns out to be just a cheap plot device: "Hey Blair - you're half-Pilgrim! The Pilgrims can navigate through space without supercomputers. I think I see a way out of this..."

Wing Commander does, of course, have a cult following, and its most devoted fans will probably forgive the Thunderbirds acting and plot simply because they've been given a chance to see their favourite PC game on a multiplex screen. Then again, most people tend to skip the demo and get on with the game.

Final Verdict
Can't wait 'til Star Wars to feed your insatiable sci-fi appetite? Then you could see Wing Commander, which does have space-fights and aliens. But unless you're a fan of the game, you'll regret your impatience when confronted with this dull, uninspired B-flight.

Two Stars.