Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 51

D5 THE HARTFORD COURANT: 'Last Star fighter' Bright, Inventive JLyr FORMERLY LOVS FILM REVIEW THIS WEEK'S TWIN BOILED MAINE LOBSTERS served with salad, potato or vegetable $12.95 90 JOHN FITCH BLVD. (RT. 5) S.WINDSOR (opposite Ten Pin Bowl) fern TherilbEat uoisurien Come early to benihana.And savor the savings. Sundav night I through Friaay night, yourtable.Byachefwho ourTeriyaki Steak and makes sure you'll have Chicken dinner, is just a great time as well as a $795 until seven pm great dinner. And that includes At a price that'll make soup, appetizer, salad, you feel great, too.

fflESEEjuJ 270 Farmington Ave. (in the Exchange) Exit 39 offI-84 677-8548 Offer good through August 31, 1984. THE LAST STARFIGHTER, Directed by Nick Castle; written by Jonathan Betuel; director of photography, King Baggot; art director. Jamas O. Bisselt; production designer.

Ron Cobb; film editor, C. Timothy Meara; music by Craig Safan; produced by Gary Adelson and Edward O. Denault. A LorlmarUnlver. sal production, distributed by Universal Pictures, and opening today at Showcase Cine-mas, East Hartford.

Running time: 100 minutes. Alex Rogan Lance Guest Grig Dan O'Herllhy Maggie Gordon Catherine Mary Stewart Jane Rogan Barbara Bosson Xur Norman Snow Centaurl Robert Preston "Summer Stock" and Fred Astaire in "Royal there's also a touch of a great movie musical characterization; Robert Preston re-, prises his "Trouble in River City" delivery from "The Music Man" in his delightfully nostalgic rendition of a fast-talking, intergalactic recruiter named Centauri with a touch of the con man about him. And drawing inspiration from the comics, production designer Ron Cobb has created a navigator named Grig, played with sophistication, aplomb and humor by the Irish actor Dan O'Herlihy. O'Herlihy has a scaled hide that makes him look vaguely like a green, slick Spider-man. "The Last Starfighter" is loaded with special effects from the screen-filling Starfighter game outside a little greasy spoon at the trailer park to the climactic fireworks in the sky sequence all the impressive computerized simulations of Digital Productions.

But it rarely loses sight of its human dimensions. Between an effective beginning that introduces us to the folks at the trailer camp and an ending that hap- Transformed Steve Semien, who is working with Stevenson on the Hartford Stage Company's Youth Theater production of "Of Thee I Sing." Stevenson has directed the Youth Theater productions since their inception, and this spring staged his first production of a professional production on the Stage Company's mainstage, Samm-Art Williams' "Home." Stevenson also has been associated as a director and teacher with Hartford Youth Theatre Unlimited but resigned last spring. He also gives master classes in New York City. His company at the Colonial, to be called the Open Forum, would present works by such contemporary playwrights as Lanford Wilson, David Mamet, Edward Albee, Leslie Lee and Dan Owens, performed by a professional company of eight to 12 actors. Students at the school, both young people and adults, would augment the company.

1 By MALCOLM L. JOHNSON Courant Film Critic In an era of commercial moviemaking which has produced one lame "Star Wars" clone after another and witnessed even the gradual deterioration of George Lucas's inspiration, it's a pleasure to see something that's at least fairly original in the realm of science fiction. The story for "The Last Starf ight-er," by Jonathan Betuel, is an imaginative, even quite witty one in which a bright, ambitious young earthling who is a video-game master is shanghaied to use his skills in a great sky battle against the bad guys in another galaxy. The screenplay also uses an inventive twist in the big shootout in deep space, cross-cutting back to earth where a corresponding conflict is in progress a sequence strongly sustained in Nick Castle's directorial debut. But Castle, a deep-dyed movie brat who played The Shape in the original "Halloween," does not hesitate to borrow ideas from other movies and other pop-art media.

-There's a bit of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in the Beta robot who stands in for the kidnapped earthling. There is also a strong flavor of Steven Spielberg in the depiction of the folks at the California trailer camp from whence the adventure takes off. And there's certainly more than a suggestion of "WarGames" in the video contests, which admit the unwitting young hero to the ranks of the top gunners of the Star League of Planets. As Castle's father was a reaouM-able choreographer (Nick Castle who worked with Gene Kelly in Colonial May Be A Canton couple is negotiating to buy the Colonial Theatre at 492 Farmington with plans to transform it into a theater-dance training center and ultimately a repertory company run by Hartford-based director-teacher Clay Stevenson. Richard M.

Reynolds, a partner in the law firm of Day Berry and Howard, and his wife, Deborah Sloan Reynolds, have been talking with Stevenson since spring about helping him achieve his longtime goal of opening a theater training school and starting a company. If the negotiations to purchase Hartford's oldest remaining movie theater from owner Francis V. Piacente are successful, classes in theater and dance would begin in the fall, and work to create a repertory company would begin sometime in 1985. The dance program at the new conservatory, emphasizing modern and jazz dance, would be run by RfUauiant Lance Guest plays Alex Rogan, ends up in an intergalactic battle, pily puts its two distant worlds back together, there are a few moments that bog down. We've seen too many weird-looking collections of aliens since the cantina scene in "Star Wars" for the gathering of the Starfighter recruits to be effective.

Some of the sets at the Star League headquarters are also ho-hum; even the low-budget "Android' used its futuristic interiors more resonantly. What lifts "The Last Starfighter" beyond and above the routine are its central performances not just those of old pros like Preston and O'Herlihy in supporting roles, but also those of the young romantic leads, both Lance Guest and Catherine Mary Stewart. Guest, spotted by Castle in "Halloween II," displays a surprising versatility in his starring debut, playing both the "real" Alex Bogan and his Beta robot double in performances that are finely differentiated. (Amusingly, and perhaps unintentionally, Guest gives the ersatz Alex more humor and human appeal than the would-be yuppie who thinks he's too good for the trailer park, City College and cruising around in a pick-up.) Friday, July 13, 1984 528-2525 Banquet Facilities Available rice Japanese vegetables and I green tea. Prpnarprl at AMERICA'S PIONEER PLAYGROUND 139th CCACHKI CONNECTICUT ULnWVll SUNDAY, JULY 15 CONTINUOUS FREE SHOWS FROM 1:30 P.M.

ON MIDWAY STAGE RAIN OR SHINE STONEWALL JACKSON Grand Ole Opry -PLUS-SUM coxx COWBOY CARAVAN AS ADVERTISED ON TV FREE PARKING INCLUDING SOFA SIZE kin UniversalLorimar a skilled video-game player who in "The Last Starfighter." Stewart brings freshness and spirit to the relatively small part of Maggie, who must first contend with the no-fun Alex and then with the humanoid Alex who is freaked out and almost put out of order by a wet kiss on the ear. As with so many pictures of this genre, so much screen time goes to laser zaps and starburst acceleration that there isn't much room for the development of secondary characters. But Castle economically and effectively gives us just enough of a taste of the trailer dwellers and Alex's buddies. Up in the air, Castle is a little shakier. We don't see quite enough of the evil Xur, played by sneering Norman Snow, to put him in the class with Lord Vader.

But then maybe they're saving the revelation of the true baseness of Xur's nature for the sequel that is so unabashedly set up. as "The Last Starfighter" zooms off to his next adventure. Rated PG, this film contains the usual amount of galactic gunplay, improprietous language here and there, and a little kid who ogles his secret cache of Playboy magazines. But this film is fine family fare. CASH PRIZES SAT.

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