Stargate

Roland Emmerich has an ambitious eye for summertime movie eye candy. It’s a pity that he can’t seem to generate memorable characters or smart bits of dialog. Forget about good acting, his films are more concerned with taking these cardboard cutouts and blowing them from one set piece to another with all the subtly and brains of a leaf blower at four in the morning. Stargate is no different, but this time there’s actually a fun concept that would make for a great television show, pity that this is a movie.

Kurt Russell and James Spader try valiantly to emote and fill out their thinly plotted characters. Naturally, Russell is the all business, hardass solider and Spader does his weird, character actor-y nerd shtick. So thank god for Jaye Davidson as Ra, yes THAT Ra, giving a performance that is both alien and bitchiest, steeliest drag queen of all time. He’s clearly finding the camp and menace in this creation, giving good face and looking other worldly enough to sell the pitch-corrected voice that comes from. But his screen time is severely limited.

There’s a lot of cool ideas on display here, but none of it adds up to much of anything. It packs in too much exposition, and then leads to a meandering dead space in the middle before roaring back to life with the introduction of Ra in the final third. Emmerich puts his considerable budget on obvious display, but can’t seem to generate much interest in making the quiet moments work. It’s all too hollow as a film, but if it had been shortened to 45 minutes and shorn of much of the second and third act, it would make a great television series. So it isn’t hard to see why we eventually got Stargate SG-1 and the rest of the inevitable spinoffs. Highly encouraging and unique concept marred by elephantine execution: this movie or short-hand for Emmerich’s entire career? You decide.