Wing Commander Directed by Chris Roberts Starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard, Jürgen Prochnow and Tchéky Karyo   A L S O_.T O D A Y Blue Glow All "Behind the Music," all the time; "SNL" loves Raymond "Deep End of the Ocean" Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir A family drowning in grief resurfaces and doesn't know how to cope - - - - - - - - - - [21ST] "Wing Commander" creator takes the director's chair By Howard Wen Chris Roberts talks about his passage from the little screen to the big screen   ___________________ Buy your copy of "Wing Commander" at barnesandnoble.com ___________________     Y E S T E R D A Y Return to sender By Liza Bear Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles talks about the inspiration behind "Central Station," his award-winning film about letters never sent (03/11/99)   R E C E N T_. M O V I E S Paths to glory By Michael Sragow From "Lolita" to "2001," Stanley Kubrick embodied the director as hero (03/09/99) "Analyze This" Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek Robert De Niro gets the lion's share of laughs in Harold Ramis' mob comedy (03/05/99) "Cruel Intentions" Reviewed by Charles Taylor Retro morality makes for a pleasurably nasty update of "Les liaisons dangereuses" "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams A hit English crime caper arrives in America jetlagged (03/05/99) Home Movies By Charles Taylor Boris Karloff mesmerizes in "The Mummy," Karl Freund's eerie, hypnotic tale of a love that wouldn't die (03/01/99)   BROWSE THE MOVIE ARCHIVES COLUMNS FEATURES REVIEWS INTERVIEWS

-----Space opera invaders ----------If you absolutely, positively can't wait for "Star Wars,"| -------"Wing Commander" works as frivolous filler. BY ANDREW O'HEHIR | If your space-opera addiction is so severe you can't wait the eight or 10 weeks for the new "Star Wars" film, and you've watched all your bootleg videotapes of "Space: Above and Beyond" more than four times, you could do worse than "Wing Commander." OK, maybe not a lot worse. Pretty much everything in this high-space war yarn has been swiped from other, better movies, and a lot of time is wasted setting creaking plot machinery into motion that never leads anywhere (except to some computer-graphics battle scenes that range from the dull to the laughable). But "Wing Commander" does offer an enjoyably consistent view of the 27th century as an age when space travel has become a grim and grimy grind, as well as appealing performances from its international cast of B-minus character actors, especially goofballish Matthew Lillard (one of the "Scream" villains) and saucy Ginny Holder as a randy space-pilot couple. Although it's based on characters and situations from the computer game of the same name, "Wing Commander" doesn't bring the random transitions of gaming to the screen, as the baffling but oddly likable "Mortal Kombat" movies did. Instead it seeks to combine the moral certainty of the Lucas universe with the "Melrose Place"-in-space mode of "Starship Troopers" (an underappreciated ironic classic) and hints of "Alien" claustrophobia. Freddie Prinze Jr. ("I Know What You Did Last Summer") and Lillard are Blair and Marshall, two hothead rookie flyboys who get caught up in the human Confederation's war against the Kilrathi, an alien race bent on destroying Earth. Unfortunately, when we finally see the fearsome Kilrathi, they look more likely to cough up hairballs on your Aunt Patrice's carpet than to waste the whole planet. Blair, who was played in the video game by no less a star warrior than Mark Hamill, has a convoluted back story that's supposedly fraught with significance. He's descended, as a crusty older pilot (Tchéky Karyo) informs him, from the Pilgrims, early human space travelers who developed special navigational powers and eventually turned against Earth in a bloody rebellion. The net result of figuring that out is that he's able to "jump" his ship through a quasar or a black hole or something in a 10-second scene resembling a Laserium show. As for Prinze, he doesn't get a lot of help from Kevin Droney's screenplay -- when threatened with court-martial for disobeying orders, Blair's response is, "Like I care!" -- but he must shoulder some blame for one of the weakest and most mechanical recent performances by a leading man. Lacking his late father's natural camera-hog charisma and marred by a petulant valley-boy delivery, Prinze has a bright smile but otherwise fades into the other actors' shadows. When Blair finally gets to kiss Angel, the icy Wing Commander herself (leggy Saffron Burrows), all I could think was that she's been in space too long. Generic limitations aside, the first 40 minutes or so of "Wing Commander" is perfectly acceptable TV-grade entertainment. But the "action" sequences -- produced, like most of the film, at some no-name studio in Luxembourg -- are likely to seem tedious and disappointing even to hardcore adherents of the game. Things get truly dispiriting when the character dramas recede and the spark provided by Lillard and Holder goes out, leaving us only one incomprehensible battle after another. If director (and game creator) Chris Roberts can't be bothered to figure out the difference between the human spaceships and the Meow Mix spaceships, I don't see why I should. On balance, you're probably better off making a pot of tea, giving the Kilrathi some kibble and bidding on eBay for "Battlestar Galactica" figurines. SALON | March 12, 1999