Wing Commander (1999)

(In theaters, March 1999) It takes less than five minutes to realize that one will go crazy trying to evaluate Wing Commander as good Science-Fiction in the purest terms. But even considering it as B-grade MST3K material isn’t as satisfying as one might expect. The script is generally quite poor, with particular awfulness being reserved for two howlingly funny “dramatic” scenes. It takes nearly ever war/space cliché and throws them together, going far beyond the usual “sounds in space” blunders. Even worse; I realized halfway through that the movie was boring. Even the space battles and fancy special effects don’t arouse interest. The directing is average, the acting is average, the special effects aren’t that special… Wing Commander only poses one question: What did we SF fans do to get a genre with movies like this?