- The Last Starfighter is a clunky but serviceable sci-fi adventure in which a regular kid gets the unexpected chance to fight himself some star wars. By virtue of playing a vector-graphics video game exceedingly well, trailer park resident Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) finds himself recruited by a slick character named Centauri (Robert Preston) to become a Starfighter, a job whose title is also its description. After much waffling, Alex becomes convinced to help and, with the assistance of his lizardlike friend Grig (Dan O'Herlihy), defeats the evil Xur (Norman Snow) and the Kodan armada.
- In most respects, this movie is even more derivative than it sounds, featuring a trailer park populated by characters from any early 80's Spielberg film and liberally borrowing music, plot, and design elements from George Lucas (nevermind where they came from originally). While Preston and O'Herlihy exude charisma, the rest of the cast is fairly boring. The villain Xur is silly and ignorable while Alex is an unlikeable jerk, so it's not even always obvious who to cheer for.
- That said, the movie does have a few merits worth mentioning. The idea of using a video game to recruit fighters is reasonably novel, even if it would be better handled in Ender's Game. The primitive CGI is charming in the same stylized way as that of Tron, although it's never especially exciting. The most original idea, I think, was to have the android replace Alex while he's gone. A thoughtful film would have wondered how the android felt about being used as a decoy for assassins, but this one mostly used it as an excuse for gags.
- Oddly enough, Wil Wheaton (of Star Trek TNG fame) seems to have been in this movie. He is credited, but only briefly visible.
- The director Nick Castle was Michael Meyers in Halloween.
