Stargate **** (1994, Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Viveca Lindfors) – Classic Movie Review 11,335

Stargate (1994) ‘Will Take You A Million Light Years From Home’.

German film-maker Roland Emmerich met actor Dean Devlin on Moon 44 (1990) and then later Devlin became Emmerich’s writing and producing partner in Hollywood. Here they turn a B-movie scenario into a spectacular grade-A action sci-fi movie in their first film together, Stargate (1994), starring Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson and Viveca Lindfors. Devlin wanted to do a Lawrence of Arabia in Space and helped Emmerich to develop the story and write the screenplay. Like Moon 44, it is another ‘galactic adventure from the excitement zone’.

The highly entertaining sci-fi action adventure Stargate, a space odyssey mixing ancient Egyptian mythology and high-tech wizardry, became an unexpected hit and is now a fondly remembered icon of its time, spawning two hit TV shows. Emmerich gets great value for his $55,000,000 budget, and the US gross was $71,567,262, and, better still news, the cumulative worldwide gross was $196,567,262. The stars are well cast and on good form, committed and up for it, while the effects and production are strong, with Emmerich in commanding control.

An interstellar teleportation device, found in Egypt in 1928, leads in the present day to linguist Dr Daniel Jackson (Spader) finding that it opens a portal to tele-transport to another planet, and he joins a military team under the command of Colonel Jonathan ‘Jack’ O’Neil (Russell) to go through the stargate and explore the new world populated with enslaved humans resembling ancient Egyptians who worship the Sun god Ra (Davidson).

Jaye Davidson’s overnight stardom as Dil in The Crying Game (1992), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, earned him his next big role here as the sun god Ra. His dislike of the attention that he received after The Crying Game made him reluctant to take the role but he didn’t want to just turn the offer down, so he made what he expected to be an unacceptable demand of $1 million, which was accepted. It is his only other feature film.

French Stewart appears in his film debut as Lieutenant Ferretti.

It runs 116 minutes, or 128 minutes special edition, or 130 minutes (director’s cut).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,335

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