Roger's Rating :
Should be :
In his one star review Roger said:
Let's say a stargate was discovered, allowing instantaneous travel across the universe and opening onto a planet that could be inhabited by humans. What would the appropriate response be? Awe? Ambition? Curiosity? Not at all. Col. O'Neil's orders: "Track down signs of any possible danger. If I find any, blow up the stargate." The movie is so lacking in any sense of wonder that it hurtles us from one end of the universe to the other, only to end in a gunfight between the good guys and the bad guys while the colonel's bomb ticks down. (Like all movie bombs, it comes equipped with a bright red digital readout device that displays the countdown while beeping.) "Stargate" is like a film school exercise. Assignment: Conceive of the weirdest plot you can think of, and reduce it as quickly as possible to action movie cliches. If possible, include sun god Ra, and make sure something gets blowed up real good.I'm not going to argue that the movie wasn't a little far-fetched. It was. But for some reason I still found the movie to be entertaining. The concept of an alien race forming the Egyptian civilization and then leaving the earth had me hooked from the beginning. Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (James Spader) deciphers the symbols on the stargate the aliens left behind and discovers that it is actually a portal to another world.
A team led by Colonel Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell) then travels through the stargate, to both investigate what is on the other side, and also see if there was any danger there. Jackson goes along on the military mission to help operate the stargate.
When they get to the other side they find an alien who once again is posing as the god Ra. He has made slaves out of the inhabitants of the planet and O'Neil and Jackson soon join in to help the locals.
This is not a thinking man's sci-fi movie like Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange or 2001: A Space Odyssey but it is a pretty good, light, science fiction adventure. Are there holes in the plot? Sure there are, but I still found it fun to watch.
The movie which grossed almost $200 million worldwide, has a 6.9 rating on IMDB and a 75% approval rating with the audience on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie also gave birth to books, video games and television series based on the movie. Not a great movie but much better than the one star Roger gave it.
