Review of Stargate (1994) by Eric A — 24 Dec 2010

Merchant had Ivory, Powell had Pressburger, and Emmerich had Devlin - in the 1990s, that last pair was arguably more synonymous with brainless action spectacle than Bay and Bruckheimer. With"Stargate" you get a pretty good idea of their template - awkward brains (James Spader) teams with dashing brawn (Kurt Russell) on an adventure typically involving aliens or some other technological menace. A few action sequences there, a romance here, and we'll fill in the blanks with Jaye Davidson making the least of his post-"Crying Game" notoriety.

"Stargate" is servicable science fiction, but there's the suggestion of an even more interesting film to be made from its elements. Davidson's sun god, Ra, is a creepy cipher. He, his minions, and his supplicants all speak an ancient dialect. They haven't learned English, being separated from humankind by 3000 Earth years and one million light years, and they don't deign to learn any - they're an alien race with the technology to travel anywhere in the fucking galaxy. Only the scientist understands them.

And Spader, as that scientist, is pretty damn great. He plays his character with pure unflappability, whether being hazed by the members of his military escort or confronting the tangible evidence for his theory about an extraterrestrial assist on the Great Pyramids. He would get all the Jeff Goldblum-type roles if Jeff Goldblum didn't already exist. I am definitely drinking the Spaderade.

I realize that I am making "Stargate" sound better than it is, but it's an ingratiating little movie. The entire enterprise has an air of nonchalance, as if rediscovering an alien civilization was just a cool weekend adventure, like paintball or skiing. It's a nice warm-up for Emmerich and Devlin's next (and greatest) collaboration on "Independence Day.".