director : roland emmerich writer : dean devlin and roland emmerich starring : james spader , kurt russel , jaye davidon , french stewart to put it bluntly , ed wood would have been proud of this . a totally ridiculous plot is encompassed with bad humor , hokey drama , zero logic and a crap screenplay . also , a beautifully anti-climactic ending . not to say it didn't look intriguing when i saw the previews . so much for truth in advertising . roland emmerich , who's later " independence day " would look like " the 400 blows " compared to this , co-writed and directed this inane sci-fi film which uses the cliche of there being some connection between eqypt and aliens . in a useless opening sequence , men find a stone in 1914 with hieroglyphics on it . it wouldn't be till present day ( '94 ) till they would actually figure it out . they're decipherer ? a slightly-neurotic scientist ( nice twist ) , dr . dan jackson ( james spader , doing his best outside of erotic thrillers and some indy fare ) who's life sucks so much that people walk out of his lectures after the third word . why do they use him to decipher what no one else could ? so there is a hokey ending ! duh ! he figures it out in about a minute . yea . and then they get a suicidal colonel or something , " jack " o'neill ( kurt russel , with his wyat earp locks in the beginning then a flat-top that would make howie long snap into a fetal position ) . why a suicidal colonel ? for the ending ! you'll get the hang of this . they open the stargate , a bunch of them go through it with a bomb to blow it up if they find anything bad . after an overdone special effects thing , they're . . . inside a goddam pyramid . so they went to egypt , right ? wrong . they're on another planet that was filmed in egypt . they discover a cilvilization ruled by ra , the sun god ( the androginous jaye davidson , with a voice modifier to make him sound like barry white with asthma ) , and there are fights , explosions and a kiss between two people . yea . also melodrama , stupidity , hokey scenes and a bizarre language . an anti-climactic ending ends with stupid lines ( " say hello to king tut , asswhole ! " - the quintessential line , lemme tell ya ) and some convenient pesudo-pseudo-pseudo-character development . by the end , you just wanna go home and watch , i don't know , the " outer limits " or something . the script's terrible . the special effects are okay , but nothing great . the story's so weak that it's almost opaque . the whole experience just isn't worth it unless you're so bored that you'd consider watching a " full house " marathon . . . or this . i'd pick this , obviously , but still , it's just not fun at all . and i can't wait for it to premier on mst3k . 
