Stargate

Directed by Roland Emmerich, Stargate follows linguist Daniel Jackson (James Spader) as he and a group of soldiers, led by Kurt Russell’s Jack O’Neil, travel through the title artifact to a distant planet occupied by humans resembling ancient Egyptians. Filmmaker Emmerich, along with cowriter Dean Devlin, delivers an entertaining sci-fi thriller that admittedly does fare best in its atmospheric and relatively captivating first half, as the picture benefits substantially from Emmerich’s far-from-subtle, appreciatively epic sensibilities and the uniformly strong efforts of a well-cast roster of players – with, in terms of the latter, stars Spader and Russell turning in typically compelling and commanding work that anchors the proceedings even through its less-than-stellar stretches. The movie’s shift to its distant-planet locale is handled fairly well by Emmerich, as well, although there eventually reaches a point at which Stargate becomes more concerned with big, blockbuster-friendly set-pieces than with the opening hour’s comparatively low-key elements (ie the third act is lamentably dominated by explosions and action-oriented interludes) – with the loud, over-the-top finale ensuring that the whole thing ends on a passable yet far from engrossing note. Still, Stargate is, for much of its 116 minutes, a decent work from a filmmaker who’s essentially cornered the market on this sort of thing (and with good reason, certainly).

**1/2 out of ****