Video games make bad movies, and this is one of the worst

Rating: 1/10 (13 July 2006)

There must be something really wrong with the world when a "movie" like this gets 6.6 in IMDb (at least while I'm writing this). My guess is that most of the votes are casted by fans of the game, who somehow cannot separate the game from the movie, as bad as it is. I was a fan of Wing Commander, but that didn't mean that I couldn't see that the movie was horrible, actually it angered me that the quality of the film was such bad in comparison with such a good game.
It is very obvious that this is a video game made into a movie, and a bad one at that. I never played the game, but my only explanation for the director leaving such an absurd and badly glued plot is that they were faithful to the video game storyline. Now, when a novel is adapted into a movie, nobody expects it to be a carbon copy, there has to be some input from the scriptwriters. Why isn't it so with people adapting video games into movies? My guess: Lack of talent by the people trying to adapt them.
The movie feels at all times like a video game (without the fun), the monsters get badder as people progress, and are completely different ones for no apparent reason. I even laughed at the part where they explain what the source of evil is, because nothing makes sense, and it only becomes more and more ridiculous. It seems that they just tried to throw in all the "shocking" elements they could think of, without thinking on how to put them together coherently. Not bad in a video game, where playability is the most important factor, and the storyline is just a plus which is supposed to add a little depth between the monster slashing, but terrible in a movie, where the storyline is supposed to be what entertains you.
Not only that, the movie is completely predictable and the directors seem to aim quite low at their intended public, as they are making obvious in too many of the scenes something that was completely obvious from the very beginning and that is supposed to surprise you at the end.
The special effects were the least bad part of the movie, but they were far from impressive, you could always tell they were computer animations (the "nude" in the movie is also computer effects) and some of them were too faithful to first person shooters character figures, more cartoon-like than real.
The movie fails completely to create any suspense as it is completely predictable, the characters are completely dull and cartoon like. It's not either shocking (like for example SAW), as the supposedly shocking scenes are computer animated and not that gory. They're not even laughable. There is nothing that will surprise you from this movie, nothing is original, its all like a random gathering of clips from other movies, that have all been better than this one.
I would continue but its unfair to continue wasting time on such a bad movie. The only excuse to see this movie is if you were a fan of the video game, and I suppose you would be disappointed by it.