"Awful" cried our armerican flunkeys on seeing Chris Roberts Game adaptation. Could be right we figured. It was made in Luxembourg after all and the what the hell do they make of note in Luxembourg? Would it be worthless overly CGI-heavy sco-fi frippery desperately trying to mount the Star Wars wave and thus safely coast to the beach on a badly pixelated surfboard? Would it outrun the humongous white horses of star wars hype before they smacled into patches of digital matchwood?Sheathe your pens critics. Rather than the expected hamfest, what you actually get is a competent though not inspiring space adventure with a huge international cast of familiar faces.
A cunning opening sequence gives a potted history of the future, played out in newcast soundbites and political speeches. Human colonists are in conflict with the Kilrathi, a bunch of feline ne'er do wells who are not predisposed towards peaceful co-existence.
Things have reached a crisis point as the film opens. Humans use AI's to number crunch accurate jumps in space. The Kilrathi lack this technology but an overwhelming attack delivers an AI into their paws, opening the way to earth. Only one ship can delay the invasion force long enough for the Earth fleet to assemble. Interest is added by a subplot concerning the pilgrims: genetically enhanced humans who turned on their own kind a couple of decades ago.
Effectively a World War II naval movie thrust into the space age, there are torpedoes, destroyers, depth charges, cruiser, broadsides and boarding actions. Even the command structure is the same and it works really well, alkthough sometimes it's a little too anachronisitic and unreal battering the films credibility. Silent running? In space? Come on!
The production design is excellent and the effects are consistently good too. Only the cheap looking Kilrathi let the side down a bit, but at least there are no duff CGI sequences as seems to be obligatory in bigger budget films.
Salted with the ood wince-worthy line and thesping moment, Wing Commander is not great, but its good unpretentious fun. It's also completely refreshing to see truly international crews on starships for once. Even the casting of two fresh faced US stars seems quite natural and the whole affair has a distinctly European feel. Perhaps thats why our yankee pals found it so unpalatable.
The film scores four out of a possible five stars.
Scrapper has made a new version of Prophecy+ available! It now has its own install program, making running it much easier... Scrapper warns that everything must be unzipped to c:\windows\temp, the default directory. Stay tuned for 1.02.
Several people reported that the new issue of PCXL reports that Freelancer will be sold as Wing Commander: Freelancer. I asked Digital Anvil, and this is NOT true...
Wow, sorry for not updating yesterday, but my ATI All in Wonder 128 finally came... and dash, but it is sweet. I no longer have to divide my attentions between the TV and my computer... and I never have to stand up again. Expect some cool movies and such (some 'Making of the Wing Commander Movie' stuff, in particular) as soon as I've got the whole record and encode thing figured out...
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