Stargate Movie, 1994

Before they unleashed the idiotic mayhem of Independence Day and Godzilla,
the idea-stealing team of director Roland Emmerich and producer-screenwriter
Dean Devlin concocted this hokey hit about the discovery of an ancient portal
capable of zipping travelers to "the other side of the known universe."

James Spader plays the Egyptologist who successfully translates the Stargate's
hieroglyphic code, and then joins a hawkish military unit (led by Kurt Russell)
on a reconnaissance mission to see what's on the other side. They arrive on
a desert world with cultural (and apparently supernatural) ties to Earth's
ancient Egypt, where the sun god Ra (played by Jaye Davidson from The Crying Game)
rules a population of slaves with armored minions and startlingly advanced technology.

After being warmly welcomed into the slave camp, the earthlings encourage and
support a rebellion, and while Russell threatens to blow up the Stargate to prevent
its use by enemy forces, the movie collapses into a senseless series of action scenes
and grandiose explosions. It's all pretty ridiculous, but Stargate found a large and
appreciative audience, spawned a cable-TV series, and continues to attract
science fiction fans who are more than willing to forgive its considerable faults.
--Jeff Shannon