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Parents' Guide to

Wing Commander

By Brian Costello, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Clichéd sci-fi movie has slow pace, gratuitous sex talk.

Movie PG-13 1999 100 minutes
Wing Commander Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 2+

Based on 1 parent review

age 2+

Boring

An hour forty minutes of plain boring.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1 ):
Kids say (1 ):

WING COMMANDER is a bad mix of clichéd characters, slow-paced and hard-to-follow action, and gratuitous sex talk. It's difficult to feel much involvement with the story when "the bad guys" aren't really shown until the last half hour or so of the movie and "the good guys" aren't especially likable. It's also difficult to feel much fear for said bad guys when they look like giant cats walking on their hind legs while talking in the same voice as a source who wishes to remain anonymous during an investigative news segment.

There's just not much to care about here, even with the world at stake. This is the classic example of a movie that tries to do too much with too little. Time that could have been spent in space battles is wasted on attempts at love or romance or to preach about how wrong it is to hate someone based on his or her heritage. And instead of a sci-fi story, what emerges is a lot of complicated space talk and gadgetry along with basic archetypal characters we've all seen so many times (the "cocky flyboy," the "misfit with something to prove") that the result is a confusing mess.

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