STARGATE. Directed by Roland Emmerich; written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich; produced by Joel B. Michaels, Oliver Eberle and Dean Devlin for MGM. Starring James Spader and Kurt Russell. Rated PG-13.
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Stargate is a lot of fun for sci/fi movie fans. It has its problems, most notably an occasional ponderous infatuation with its special effects at the expense of narrative zip. And a certain confusion as to what the main point of the movie is to be.
But the effects are quite impressive, and the story, though a little unfocused, moves well enough.
Jackson (Spader) is an Egyptologist with some unconventional ideas who is recruited to decipher the engravings on an unusual artifact. It's a giant ring that the military thinks might be some kind of transporter to an unknown part of the universe. And guess what? It is!
Through the stargate go Jackson and some heavily-armed soldiers (led by Russell, in an outrageous flattop), just in case something nasty's on the other side.
Most of the movie takes place on this planet on the other side of the universe, where there are some unusual animals, but where most everything else looks a lot like the Lawrence of Arabia backlot. Great desert scenery, in other words, and a bunch of Bedouin-looking humans.
They've been enslaved there by the sun-god Ra himself (Jaye Davidson of The Crying Game, who doesn't have much acting to do, but who looks great as this super-villain).
In a rather stereotypical way, (i.e., with the aid of a girl he falls in love with) Jackson finds out why the people look like Earthlings, why they're mining this strange metal, and how he and the soldiers can get back to Earth.
Stargate starts out something like Aliens, with the Marines going into a strange environment, but not too much is made of this subplot (mainly because most of the soldiers get toasted early on at the hands of the bad guys). The main plotline eventually settles on the Bedouins' struggles against Ra, and this makes for some nifty battle scenes.
Ra's spaceship is really cool, with lots of neat gadgets like a transporter that is much more impressive, visually, than Star Trek's, and a coffin-like gizmo that can bring people back to life.
After all is said in done in Stargate, if you like to see imaginative hardware like this in action (along with some neat weaponry and, of course, the Stargate itself), then you'll really enjoy the movie.
If, however, you demand a little more in the character and narrative development line, then I'd give Stargate a pass.
July 12, 1994