Stargate

It will take you a million light years from home. But will it bring you back?

STARGATE (PG)

D: Roland Emmerich

StudioCanal/Carolco/Centropolis (Joel B. Michaels, Oliver Eberle & Dean Devlin)

US 1994

120 mins

Science Fiction/Adventure

W: Roland Emmerich & Dean Devlin

DP: Karl Walter Lindenlaub

Ed: Michael Duthie & Derek Brechin

Mus: David Arnold

PD: Holger Gross

Kurt Russell (Col. Jack O'Neil), James Spader (Dr. Daniel Jackson), Jaye Davidson (Ra), Viveca Lindfors (Dr. Catherine Langford), Alexis Cruz (Skaara)

An American Egyptologist discovers a portal which allows travel between Earth and a distant planet where inhabitants are descendants of Ancient Egyptian slaves, ruled over by a despotic leader who holds the secret of eternal youth.

Standard sci-fi with a plot recycled from other films and stories and heavily indebted to Star Trek in particular. Some of the CGI effects work well but others are poorly animated. The film was unexpectedly popular in 1994 and spawned a successful TV series, where it seemed to work better, mostly due to a larger scope for adventure. As the TV series, I think the idea worked well... the film, not so much.

6/10