Warp Speed to Nostalgia!
The eighties were the decade
of my awkward transition from teenager to adulthood. Video games, sci-fi movies, girls, acne and
weird feelings, what a time to be alive!
I lived a good portion of that time in arcades because my raging
hormones could be momentarily drowned out by the roar of 8-bit music and the
rush of playing my personal favorite coin-op, Bally’s Wizard of Wor.
I loved video games, still do, and “The Last
Starfighter” is one of the few movies that manages to successfully use video
games as a jumping off point for a delightful story.
While not a Steven Spielberg
film, “The Last Starfighter” certainly reflects his influence in its
glorification of homespun nostalgia. The
story is absurdly simple and simply absurd, but it succeeds largely because of
the earnest performances of the actors, who make the drama ring true and the
comedy sparkle with a heaping helping of old-fashioned, aw-shucks
enthusiasm. This sentimentality is
difficult to resist because “The Last Starfighter” is just so happy to be a
movie!
Lanky but charming Lance
Guest plays Alex Rogan, a young man who feels trapped in the trailer park where
he lives with his mom and little brother, doing handyman chores for the aging
residents. Alex has a steady girlfriend,
but he wants more from life than necking by the lake in a sleeping bag. He dreams of escaping to college, but when Alex's school loan is denied, he is crushed by the thought of being consigned to
replace fuses and erect TV antennas but never see the big wide world outside
his little desert valley.
To distract himself, Alex
plays a newly arrived video game at the trailer park’s general store. The machine turns out to be a recruitment
tool sent by an intergalactic huckster named Centauri, played by the
delightfully hammy Robert Preston. When
Alex beats the game, Centauri appears and offers Alex the chance to actually
escape the trailer park, but that choice involves risking his life as a real
star pilot in an actual war! At first
Alex balks at this responsibility, but danger at home compels him to make the
leap into the great beyond.
CGI was still in its nascent
stage, but the visual effects in “The Last Starfighter” hold up quite well, due
in large part to the brilliant production design by Ron Cobb. Despite the modest computing power of this
era’s processors, the Gunstar spaceship that Alex commands is a unique and
nicely detailed design. The dogfight
action is very well-composed and edited, and Craig Safan’s rousing score soars
through it all, keeping our spirits flying along with Alex as he battles
seemingly impossible odds.
The supporting cast is wonderful
across the board. Catherine Mary Stuart
plays Maggie, Alex’s sweetheart, and her girl-next-door looks, luminous eyes
and sweet yet sexy demeanor make her instantly adorable. Alex’s little brother Louis, played by Chris
Hebert, adds a lot of humor without feeling one-dimensional, and all the
denizens of the trailer park are distinct even though
they don’t have much screen time. These
background characters may feel a bit stereotypical, but this kind of cinematic
shorthand is still done with genuine affection.
“The Last Starfighter” is a
mighty cornball of clichés. An unabashed
celebration of can-do attitude, romance and adventure which might seem mawkish
to those with hardened hearts, but I find its schmaltz to be utterly appealing
and infectious. It’s a love letter to
youth in all its optimism, aspirations and starry-eyed wonder. If you have ever looked up at the night sky
and dreamed of cosmic adventure, then “The Last Starfighter” is your ticket to
a trip back in time for a vision of the future, eighties-style!
