“Stargate” is, by far, one of the best films of 1994-95 and is highly recommended for sci-fi fans.

The plot is the usual for one of this genre: a very old woman comes to Professor Daniel Jackson (James Spader), the usual nerd for a Roland Emmerich film (Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot) and gives him a job decoding an Egyptian artifact known as the Stargate (hence the films name). When he does, Colonel Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell), a depressed military man, after his son accidentally shoots himself with his father's gun (not shown in film), travel back through the stargate with a crack commando team and James Spader, who is needed to decode the stargate on the other side of “the known galaxy”. As you have probably guessed by now, there are several things which go wrong once on the other side of the stargate.

One of the things which goes wrong was the arrival of the “Sun God Ra” an evil alien whose race is dying out. Ra's underlings wipe out the commandos (of course) and O'Neil, Jackson, and a bunch of earthlings (did I forget to mention that they met a bunch of earth people there?) and they must battle the astoundingly powerful Sun God Ra (no, no. Alien, not God.) before they can find their way back home.

This film has a great plot and characters, the acting is better than usual, however, it does resolve to gunfire, hand-to-hand fighting, and fighters, and an Independence Day-like explosion to win. I only have a few problems with this film.

1. Ra has about five scantly clad male children which follow him everywhere.
2. Ra himself looks like a girl even though he is supposed to be a boy (Hollywood is once again trying to confuse the sexes.)
3. It contains roughly 10 to 12 profanities, most of which are the usual d-words and h-words, however, the characters do take Christ's name in vain two times. The other two are the a-word and Son-of-a-b.
4. At one point, a young woman tries to take her garment off, in front of Spader, but he remains moral and keeps her from doing it. The scene lasts about 25 to 45 seconds.
5. O'Neil kills one of the bad guys by sending the head up to Ra's ship, and they show the little red stump at the bottom too.

Overall, though, from a Christian standpoint, I recommend this film, but caution people to be aware of the difficulties in it. Hollywood needs to see that plots are not an excuse for foul language. I found this to be true in Six Days, Seven Nights, where the plot became a cussing contest to see how far past the limit they can go.

This film will provide with a chance to have a discussion with your family, and to give you two hours of fun and action.