Stargate: Ultimate Edition (1994)

            This quirky sci-fi adventure, action film begins in 8,000 B.C., jumps to 1928 and jumps again to the present, presumably 1994, in the first five minutes.  Several hackneyed elements are merged in the screenplay: strange Egyptian archeological discoveries, teleportation, military presence, an evil madman who lives forever, subjugated masses and so on.  Add to that mix a depressed, self-destructive Colonel O'Neil and a longhaired bumbling genius, Dr. Jackson, and this film becomes a caricature of every bad sci-fi movie.  The story moves fairly quickly and there is a lot of action, futuristic technology gimmicks and a happy ending.  Believability is not a consideration.  I'm guessing that it's target audience is preteen.

            The idea for the film story is loosely based on the evidence for alien visitation that's proposed and supported in The Chariot of the Gods by Erich Von Daniken.  He narrates a DVD segment of the Ultimate Features called Is There a Stargate?  This inclusion on the DVD is why it has the title "Ultimate Edition."  The segment includes film clips of the "signs" that Daniken claims prove there have been alien visitations.  Many are so large they are only visible in their entirety from the air.  It's by far, more interesting than the film.

            Kurt Russell plays the ramrod colonel and James Spader plays the PhD archeologist who figures everything out and gets the girl.  Russell is at his best in comedy roles, like Overboard (1987) with Goldie Hawn.  This role was about a miserable guy and Russell seemed miserable doing the part.  Spader is terrific in some roles, like Graham in Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), and he seemed to be having fun playing the goofy professor, but it was hard for him to inject any comic relief into such a over wrought storyline. 

            Reviewed August 23, 2005                            copyright 2005 Charles T. Markee

            Not rated but probably PG-13 for violent scenes.