Stargate (1994)

What makes Stargate work, really work, is that it doesn't feel like pure fantasy. There's a thread running through it that tugs at something genuinely plausible, or at least genuinely possible, and that's a rare thing for a big blockbuster to pull off. The idea that the ancient Egyptians might have had help, that the pyramids and the gods and all that extraordinary mythology could point to something we simply haven't reckoned with yet. I'm not saying I believe it, but I don't entirely not believe it either, and that's exactly where a film like this wants you.

Egyptology has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. There's so much about the ancient world we don't fully understand, so many gaps in the record, so many structures and symbols that resist easy explanation. Stargate plants its flag right in the middle of all that mystery and runs with it, and the result is a sci-fi blockbuster with a surprisingly solid foundation. It doesn't feel like someone just slapped hieroglyphics on a space opera to make it look clever. The setting feels considered.

And then there's the film itself, which is just incredibly impressive for 1994. I watched it thinking about when it was made, and honestly the special effects wouldn't look embarrassing today. The gate activation sequence alone is the kind of thing that must have had cinema audiences properly open-mouthed. The scale of it all, the desert landscapes, the production design, it's ambitious filmmaking that actually delivers on its ambition, which is rarer than it should be. That puts it in decent company alongside other mid-nineties spectacles. I had a lot of time for Independence Day too, another film from that era that knew how to make scale feel genuinely thrilling rather than just loud.

The score deserves a proper mention as well. It's grand and ceremonial and it completely commits to the world the film is building. It doesn't nudge you and wink. It plays the whole thing dead straight, which is the only way this kind of story works. The moment you let irony creep in, the spell breaks. Stargate never lets it creep in.

Kurt Russell, too. I mean, come on. He's just great in this. Understated where another actor might have gone big, grounded when the material around him is reaching for the epic. He brings a kind of weathered, weary credibility that makes you buy into all of it a lot more easily. He's one of those actors who makes difficult things look effortless, and Stargate is a good reminder of why he was such a reliable screen presence in this period.

If I'm being honest, it's not a perfect film. The pacing dips in places, and some of the character work is thin enough that you don't feel every beat as deeply as you might. But those are minor complaints against a film that sets out to be a rousing, imaginative, big-hearted sci-fi adventure and very much succeeds at being exactly that.

It's a proper 90s classic, and I mean that without a hint of condescension. Not everything that gets called a classic from that decade has earned it. This one has. Three and a half stars.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1994  | Watched: 2025-06-27

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