Last Starfighter
Amid all the cheesy and blatant references to Star Wars (and the use of several Star Trek guest stars in minor roles), this is actually a fun and enjoyable sci-fi write-off from the 1980s in the hands of director Nick Castle (best remembered as Michael Myers in the original Halloween). As Alex Rogan, trailer park kid who is recruited to fight for freedom in outer space after breaking the record on the “Starfighter” arcade game, Lance Guest does a nice job of showing his character’s frustration at being unable to escape his drab environment as well as his reluctance when he learns that the video game world he has mastered is now reality. As an added bonus, Guest also gets to play a “Beta Unit” (basically a robot clone of himself) who stays behind on Earth to keep his loved ones from getting suspicious: Guest makes this second role funny and unique as well, especially when forced to deal with the day-to-day aspects of Alex’s life which he is not accustomed to since he is an advanced form of artificial intelligence from outer space; As Alex’s girlfriend, Catherine Mary Stewart is as radiant as she always was back in her heyday, sharing fine chemistry with Guest and making their romance the heart of the movie; Robert Preston steals all his scenes as the fast-talking Centauri, inventor of the arcade game and recruiter of starfighters, despite a cheap attempt to milk the audience’s emotions with a fake “death” scene; Dan O’Herlihy (well past 60 at the time of filming), covers himself with extensive makeup for the role of Grig, Alex’s alien navigator who maintains a sense of humor even when facing impossible odds; and stage actor Norman Snow goes WAY over the top as the lead villain Xur. As unbeatably cool as the concept is though, the film is nearly undone by its early-80s Tron-era computerized special effects, which eschews the realism of model miniatures at the time to employ a look that makes all the space battles look like literal video games. One also has to laugh at the sheer level of incompetence of the evil Kodan alien armada: the fact that one lone starfighter is able to basically wipe them out doesn’t say much about their claim to being interstellar badasses. The theme music by Craig Safan is uplifting and unique to the film despite it being an obvious nod to John Williams’ bombastic Star Wars cues. As for the ending (which tries to set up for a sequel that never happened), it carries just the right amount of emotional weight and awe to make the whole enterprise work (especially watching O’Herlihy’s alien interact with the trailer park denizens). In the end, a prime example of how the era of the 80s produced some damn cool movies even if not all of them were blockbusters…
8/10