Stargames - 1997
Stargames is a movie that has very few games in it. It does, however, have the director's kids as the stars and a literal, actual bear that chases one of the kids around. You have to put life and limb on the line for art, I suppose.
The general plot of the movie is about a prince from space who is forced to flee from... a guy? The villain's name is Lugos. I don't think his motivations were ever properly explained, but he was very visibly a cross between Darth Vader, a Cyberman, and a low budget movie monster. His minions are much the same, clearly stylized as stormtroopers (who inexplicably shoot laser beams from their hands by doing a particularly alarming salute).
The main kids are the director's sons - the space prince (cough Luke cough) is Kirk, after Captain Kirk, as he explains two or three times in the span of a few minutes. The other is Brian, who is apparently diabetic. Is this explained to us, like Captain Kirk, or even shown effectively? No, absolutely not. Instead he shouts about injecting poison into himself and goes off to get chased around the woods by a bear. He's cured of his diabetes at the end of the movie with space magic. The movie does this constantly, where things are over-explained but still make literally no sense.
And finally, the most important character in the movie - Happy. Happy is the AI on Kirk's spaceship. He is a clown. He does a very bad Robin Williams impression (and a worse Robert De Niro). I get the feeling they were going for something like the Genie from Aladdin, saw the trailer for Patch Adams, and went "oh, we can do that!" He gets literally blown up after being on screen for a few minutes and returns at the end of the movie as a mysterious floating head, so, there's that.
Highlights of Stargames include The Rope, which I genuinely cannot explain, 20 Crovons, which may or may not be a unit of measurement, the same scene and sound effect getting reused more than a dozen times in the span of ten minutes, and BRIAN.
A fun fact - this was directed by the same guy that directed Final Justice, a fantastically well-known MST3K film that stars Joe Don Baker. Not important, but weird.
I can't think of a single change to this movie that would make it more confusing, more entertaining, or dumber. If you like bad movies, watch it. 10/10.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132662/
