1999, 1 hr 39 min., Rated PG-13 for sexual references and sci-fi action/violence. Dir: Chris Roberts. Cast: Freddie Prinze Jr.(Chris Blair), Matthew Lillard ("Maniac" Marshall), Saffron Burrows ("Angel" Devereaux), Jürgen Prochnow (Commander Gerald), Tchéky Karyo (Taggart).

Star Wars Episode 1 trailer number two! That's why I went to see Wing Commander, and in the end it may not have been worth my four and-a-half bucks to see on the big screen. I should have been warned, after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution gave the film a D+, although I'm not sure if the + is warranted. I'm going to throw in some major spoilers, but it won't matter because I hope you never, ever go see this movie.

The most noticeable thing about Wing Commander is that it wants to be a World War II movie, and is, only set in the year 2654:

• The fighters are designed to look like WW II fighters. From the front, you can't tell any difference.
• Same problem as in Starship Troopers, our heroes are laughingly given primitive weapons. The fighters don't fire lasers, but bullets! I think if we can jump throughout space using pulsars and quasars, then we can come up with more sophisticated weapons.
• The Destroyers are really just space submarines. When the ship goes to battle stations, there is the familiar blue tint of a sub in Das Boot or any other underwater war film.
• The Destroyer/sub fires torpedoes and moves like a sub with the typical sharp turn after firing close to the enemy ship. When the lead ship hides on an asteroid, it's nothing different than hiding on the bottom of the ocean, all power off and not even able to make a noise! The enemy ship slides above them, firing what appear to be depth charges.
• Phrases heard in Wing Commander include "We have a bogie," "Fire when we have a firing solution," "Fire tubes one and two!" and "Hard to port!" Even the phrase "That's not a destroyer" is uttered, causing me to blurt out "That's a space station!"

The suspense was anything but, because I just didn't care. The aliens are the worst design in film history, coming right out of "Power Rangers." I could do better with masking tape and pillow cushions.

In the same line as poor weapons readiness, the emergency management leaves much to be desired: Lt. Devereaux is in her ejected pod awaiting rescue, and only has one hour of oxygen to survive?! This I don't understand; in the middle of space I would think that emergency agencies would make fighters that provided multiple hours of oxygen and food. Earlier, Rosie crashes outside the fighter-hanger, yet there are no emergency personnel that ever see if she's alive. Hello! She's 15 feet outside the "liveable zone" during a war, yet there are no rescue squads in suits at all times for emergencies? Later, when Lt. Devereaux is saved, our hero (Prinze) has time to fly from one command ship to another when he hears she's been found, yet by the time they arrive, there still are no doctors around to perform CPR or give her oxygen. What?!

And when Rosie is guided in by Marshall, it's almost exactly like Top Gun. Also reminiscent of Top Gun, Prinze is describing maneuvers to outgun enemy fighters, and in every detail outlines the scene where Tom Cruise "hits the brakes and he'll fly right by." Not to mention that Prinze's call sign is "Maverick".

There is a lot of potential, because the the plot has legs, and the young cast mixed with veteran officers would work really well if only they had credible dialogue. Saffron Burrows, who plays Lt. "Angel" Devereaux, is a major babe, and definitely someone I'll watch out for in the future. But Prinze and Lillard are hokey and predictable.

You can tell from the special effects that it is based on a popular video game, it's just too bad that - unlike a game - the filmmakers had to include a script.

A movie I would rather have seen would be about the war between the Pilgrims (the first human space explorers who evolved to live in space and felt they were almost gods) and those on Earth.