There’s a special kind of hubris in Stargate—a movie so convinced of its grandeur that it completely neglects to give itself a pulse. There are gods, galaxies, ancient ruins, and desert planets. Basically Dune crossed with Chariots of the Gods. But it all just feels like Indiana Jones on a double dose of Ambien. There’s no denying the ambition, but it’s not met with nearly enough energy to match it. It wants to be a space opera for grown-ups, but it plays more like a beige sermon that got lost in its own made-up theology—and then drowned in military jargon.
James Spader shows up as tweedy linguist Daniel Jackson. He’s brought into a top-secret government project to decode markings on a giant stone ring that was pulled from the desert. It ostensibly looks like some old, benign relic from our ancestors, but really it’s a Stargate—deeply advanced alien technology that generates wormholes and can fling you across the universe faster than you can say “early CGI cosmic rollercoaster.” Leading the mission is Jack O’Neil (Kurt Russell)—a career soldier with a death wish and a jaw locked tighter than a safe. He has a buzz cut that’s standard issue, but his death glare is purely extra. When he steps through the gate, he’s armed to the teeth—much to the chagrin of Daniel, who just wants to talk to people.
What’s waiting for them on the other side of the gate is Abydos—a desert world with twin suns. The population consists of humans descended from ancient Egyptian slaves who still speak the language—convenient for Daniel, who of course is fluent. But the place is under strict, tyrannical rule. Ruled by Ra (Jaye Davidson), an extraterrestrial who once played god on Earth and never bothered to quit the role. He’s since left Earth and keeps himself busy on Abydos, directing his slaves to mine minerals.
The premise is gold, and there are a few elements that glimmer through its muted sense of adventure. The set designs are elaborate, and there’s some imaginative babbling here and there pertaining to the mythology of its own invention. But even the mythology just leaves me wanting more. It’s beige and undercooked, as if the writers had so much more planned but were forced to leave most of it out in favor of character development (which is awful anyway). Worst of all, though, is the dialogue—so poor that it sounds like it was translated twice and only understood once.
Credit where it’s due, though: Stargate left behind a skeleton enticing enough for someone else to turn it into a television franchise. The show took the inherently interesting premise and actually ran with it. The series is funny, weird, and—let’s just say, best of all—corntastic. But as far as the movie source material is concerned, it’s admirable in a sense. It wants to be a grand sci-fi epic. But all it ended up being was little more than one long, drawn-out cosmic doodle.
