Movie Review - The Last Starfighter


Lately, there seems to be an overabundance of really crappy bad movies. It seems like the boil up from a well of pure evil and crap. For example, the latest of them being "The Fast and the Furious".

In fact, it seems like movie watching these days consists of going out with the knowledge that what you're about to see is going to be regurgitated crap. Case in point: Tomb Raider, The Mummy Returns, Mission Impossible 2, etc. (It should be noted that "The Fast and The Furious" by and far makes these and all other movies seem like cinematic gemstones.)

Well, i have recently discovered that crappy movies existed before the time when a movie was considered good if the number of explosions outweighed the dialouge, before the time when CGI ruled all, before a time when making a movie was not some fascade for displaying a two and a half long music video on the big screen.

Ladies and gentlemen, i give you: The Last Starfighter

Don't ask me why i saw this movie. I certainly did not choose to. In fact, i didn't even watch the whole thing, though the last thirty minutes explain roughly everything. Actually, i take that back, the last thirty minutes gave the viewer the impression that the movie was exactly the same throughout.

The Last Starfighter. Made in 1983, if i got that correct. It stars great actors such as Lance Guest (probably starring in a trash recepticle as we speak), Dan O'Herlihy, whose antics are protrayed as the loveable alien Grig, and the heroine, Catherine Mary Stewart, whose unsuspected line, "I love you, Alex!" blew us all away.

Take a look at what was transcribed on the "video box":

Can a teenager from a trailer park in the sticks find happiness
as an intergalactic warrior? That's the premise of THE LAST
STARFIGHTER, a magical adventure starring Robert Preston, Dan O'Herlihy, and two of today's most exciting young stars, Lance Guest and Catherine Mary Stewart. It's the story of an alien scalawag
(Robert Preston) who recruits a whiz kid at the video game,
Starfighter, to fight outer space wars to save the universe.
Besides appealing characters and an intriguing plot, THE LAST STARFIGHTER features production design by Ron Cobb of ALIEN, STAR WARS and CONAN THE BARBARIAN fame, plus computer generated special effects that go far beyond anything ever seen on film.

You know, this is probably why many of the people born in the eighties have come out the way they are now.

Check out the hero of our little tale, Alex Rogan:

Who's yo' daddy!

And his trusty sidekick, who proves that alien lizards ALWAYS find subtle human behavior to be funny, and that everywhere, throughout the universe, aliens can speak english with ease, but somehow the Russians cannot. His name, is Grig:

Yum. Don't you wanna give me a kiss?

Ah, but don't forget our young hero's love interest, Maggie:

He'll risk life and limb to be with his one true love.

And last, but not least, the powerful starfighter that ends up saving the day:

Varooom! This thing can fly Fast and Furiously!

I'm afaid for all humanity at this moment.

I was in the living room when my brother started watching this movie. Actually i walked into the living room while he was watching it, and i sat down to work on my computer before i had to continue packing. (Later that night i played against Andy and James in Mario Kart. For how that went, see deadMAN's post above.)

This movie was extremely predicatable. And is was extremely mind-numbing and excruciating. Why, oh why did someone make this crap.

But then i ask myself...is it really that bad? Yes it is. But at least they have a couple of excuses. One, it was the eighties. Two, it was a B-movie, by my understanding. Three, they had a small time cast.

So in the end, what was the excuses for: Mission Impossible 2, Tomb Raider, and The Mummy Returns?

For the Boswanians²