By Ben / 2009-12-31 08:00:17So close to being done and free from having to watch old videogame films! Our penultimate film for the regular run of Loading screen is Wing Commander, a film I'd never previously seen.
Assuming my new years isn't massive, the final fim should be up tomorrow
While everyone knows that we British are the greatest actors in the world, this is just fact and cannot be argued with, a large proportion of Brits in a film is indicative of one of two things. Either this is a high quality drama that needs an air of grandeur, likely a period piece, or British actors were used because they’re cheaper and this is not going to be a big budget film. I’ll let you decide which category Wing Commander falls into.
One thing the large number of Brits does allow for is a quick game of ‘before they were famous’, as future stars of Casualty and Coronation Street are tasked with just sounding like they’re on a boat or submarine or something. The acting in general isn’t anything special, the likes of Suchet and Karyo aside, as they both shine in roles that are largely beneath them. It’s not that the other performances are bad, it’s more that everyone else lacks the presence to carry the seriousness of tone through something as trivial as Wing Commander.
Rosie for example is a tough talking man-eater, similar in type to Vasquez from Aliens, only it’s all quite unconvincing. The same with Lillard’s character (last seen in Dungeon Siege), he plays to type by being cocky, brash and irresponsible, but commands such little respect that he should mocked relentlessly by the more senior pilots at every opportunity. Prinze Jr feels particularly sorry for himself for most of the films, though is better in the brief moments where he’s being mature rather than whiny.
Perhaps it’s not the fault of the actors, more that the casting and tone of the film don’t mesh with that of the script. For example there’s the habit of ‘forgetting’ people when they die, on paper this would read quite serious and dramatic, but on screen it makes you wonder why no one’s told them to grow up.
Another example of the tone of script and final product not meshing is the racism angle. Prinze Jr’s character is half human, half ‘Pilgrim’, who I think are also humans, just humans who are very good at space travel. Regardless the Pilgrims aren’t trusted, and so neither if Prinze Jr. I talked about how laboured the racism angle was in Pokemon, here it’s probably even worse, if only because it’s so frequent and so out of place. The humans have treaties with alien races, yet can’t still have prejudices against segments of their own species based on nothing more than them being good at maths.
The special effects are a mixed bag, hardly surprising considering the film came out 10 years ago, but it is nice to see that some parts have aged well. The cat like aliens you see at the end of the film are horrendously bad, too stiff, and just generally cheap looking. The ships themselves look ok, considering, and the action is decent enough, although there isn’t a staggering amount of it. That said the film does move at a bit of a pace, there’s very little build up, but then character progression happens absurdly quickly.
There’s a few other quirks that add to Wing Commander looking cheap, the use of MiniDiscs to carry important encrypted data for example. Given that the format barely made it out of the 20th century, I can’t see it getting a resurgence in the 27th. That said Wing Commander was surprisingly watchable for a bad film. The sort of thing you’d watch on a bank holiday because you don’t want to get out of bed. With a bigger budget and a better cast it might actually have troubled the higher echelons of the video game film genre, feint praise perhaps. But as it is it’s not worth recommending, despite it being far from the worst film around.
Assuming my new years isn't massive, the final fim should be up tomorrow
While everyone knows that we British are the greatest actors in the world, this is just fact and cannot be argued with, a large proportion of Brits in a film is indicative of one of two things. Either this is a high quality drama that needs an air of grandeur, likely a period piece, or British actors were used because they’re cheaper and this is not going to be a big budget film. I’ll let you decide which category Wing Commander falls into.
One thing the large number of Brits does allow for is a quick game of ‘before they were famous’, as future stars of Casualty and Coronation Street are tasked with just sounding like they’re on a boat or submarine or something. The acting in general isn’t anything special, the likes of Suchet and Karyo aside, as they both shine in roles that are largely beneath them. It’s not that the other performances are bad, it’s more that everyone else lacks the presence to carry the seriousness of tone through something as trivial as Wing Commander.
Rosie for example is a tough talking man-eater, similar in type to Vasquez from Aliens, only it’s all quite unconvincing. The same with Lillard’s character (last seen in Dungeon Siege), he plays to type by being cocky, brash and irresponsible, but commands such little respect that he should mocked relentlessly by the more senior pilots at every opportunity. Prinze Jr feels particularly sorry for himself for most of the films, though is better in the brief moments where he’s being mature rather than whiny.
Perhaps it’s not the fault of the actors, more that the casting and tone of the film don’t mesh with that of the script. For example there’s the habit of ‘forgetting’ people when they die, on paper this would read quite serious and dramatic, but on screen it makes you wonder why no one’s told them to grow up.
Another example of the tone of script and final product not meshing is the racism angle. Prinze Jr’s character is half human, half ‘Pilgrim’, who I think are also humans, just humans who are very good at space travel. Regardless the Pilgrims aren’t trusted, and so neither if Prinze Jr. I talked about how laboured the racism angle was in Pokemon, here it’s probably even worse, if only because it’s so frequent and so out of place. The humans have treaties with alien races, yet can’t still have prejudices against segments of their own species based on nothing more than them being good at maths.
The special effects are a mixed bag, hardly surprising considering the film came out 10 years ago, but it is nice to see that some parts have aged well. The cat like aliens you see at the end of the film are horrendously bad, too stiff, and just generally cheap looking. The ships themselves look ok, considering, and the action is decent enough, although there isn’t a staggering amount of it. That said the film does move at a bit of a pace, there’s very little build up, but then character progression happens absurdly quickly.
There’s a few other quirks that add to Wing Commander looking cheap, the use of MiniDiscs to carry important encrypted data for example. Given that the format barely made it out of the 20th century, I can’t see it getting a resurgence in the 27th. That said Wing Commander was surprisingly watchable for a bad film. The sort of thing you’d watch on a bank holiday because you don’t want to get out of bed. With a bigger budget and a better cast it might actually have troubled the higher echelons of the video game film genre, feint praise perhaps. But as it is it’s not worth recommending, despite it being far from the worst film around.
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