I had been a big fan of the video games when I was younger, and considering how good Wing Commander 3 had been, you could only expect that the movie would be decent.<br /><br />Right?<br /><br />Wrong. Replacing veteran actors like John Rhys Davies, Malcom McDowell and Mark Hamill was a veritable who's who of the worst actors in Hollywood. Freddy Prinze Jr. delivers a role of a caliber only a cardboard cut-out of himself could duplicate (not that this is out of the ordinary for him). Matthew Lillard proves once again that he's only good in a role where a complete lack of skill as an actor goes unnoticed. <br /><br />Beyond this, the story is ludicrous. If the two leading actors don't irritate you just with their presence, or lack of screen presence, the boring, paper thin plot will. The fighters, far removed from the sleek, lethal looking fighters of the video game are replaced by clunky, clumsy looking ones. I remember hearing the creators of the movie wanted the movie to have the feel of old school WW2, Korean War dogfights, but they not only failed in that, they gave us fighters that nobody would actually want to fly in the game. <br /><br />I remember this being the first movie I ever felt like walking out on, and only stayed because I figured at the time that there had to be some redeeming value to it. Wow, was I ever wrong. And the worst part of this disaster? It derailed a possible franchise before it even got started. I remember thinking that Wing Commander 3 would have made a great movie (even though the video game was among the first video games to have a full cast of actors and sets). Well, it probably would have, though this was not it. Save yourself the time and effort, don't even catch a rerun on SciFi.<br /><br />1/10, and only because Saffron Burrows is good looking enough to fool you into stopping if you channel surf by.