It's an ironic testament to the rapid evolution of technological progress that a film attempting to emulate the experience of playing a video game has, almost 30 years later, been surpassed in visual quality by video games themselves. Indeed, the continuous advancements made regarding visual effects has caused many technology-based films of the 80s, such as WarGames (John Badham, 1983), Tron (Steven Lisberger, 1982) and Weird Science (John Hughes, 1985), to seem dated and hard to take seriously for today's audience. Of these titles, The Last Starfighter is arguably one that has aged the best. While the computer generated star-fighting sequences sometime seem bare and without texture, they are balanced out by still-convincing make-up jobs and solid art design. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the acting, which generates more laughs than I'm sure were initially intended. Lance Guest, a TV actor in one of his few film-starring roles, does a frigid job of playing Alex Rogan, the title's last starfighter, a qualification that incidentally helps his complimentary performance of Beta Alex, the robot left on Earth to take his place after he is recruited to save the galaxy. At times cheesy, at times breathtaking, The Last Starfighter remains often enjoyable and surprisingly easy to go along with.
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