Three reasons to stay home on the weekend
Stargate
Written by Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Starring Kurt Russell, James Spader and Jaye Davidson
There’s a scene in the beginning of Stargate where James
Spader’s character Dr. Daniel Jackson explains his drunken sci-fi
theories on the creation of the Great Pyramid. One by one, and then
en masse, the scientific community shuffles out of the
auditorium.
Stargate should face a similar dilemma. This film is so
unexciting, so poorly drafted, and so unspectacular that even
sci-fi fans will forget to come back after buying popcorn.
The first 20 or so minutes aren’t ridiculously poor. The
characters, or lack thereof, are established and the situation is
laid out economically. Jackson is a scientific outcast and a master
of ancient Egyptian studies. Colonel Jack O’Neil (Kurt Russell) is
a distraught military man whose son shot himself to avoid being
written into the film. The two poor conversationalists are quickly
linked in a top-secret government project to journey through the
"Stargate" to a mystery world. Once there, O’Neil and his
undeveloped military buddies demand that Jackson get them back to
Earth. No such luck. No one thought that far ahead.
Co-writers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich (Emmerich also
directed, so blame him even more!) probably have a difficult time
divvying up the worst of this melee. There’s almost a joy in this
film’s B-movie feel, from a hairy monster dragging Jackson across
the desert to the obligatory romance between Jackson and the only
woman in the universe, Mili Avital.
That’s if you don’t count Jaye Davidson, who walks through his
million-dollar cameo as Ra the sun god. It’s tough to make an
intergalactic ruler dull, but Stargate’s creators have done just
that.
Also notice the lack of interesting O’Neil anecdotes. Russell’s
got such a one-dimensional character with no humor, distinction, or
merit that Brian Bosworth could have pulled this off.
Sure, the special effects will wow, but we’ve seen better and
nothing can prop up a dud like Stargate. Never before have such
bland characters traveled so far to be so boring.
Michael Horowitz
Silent Fall
Written by Akiva Goldsman
Directed by Bruce Beresford
Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Linda Hamilton, John Lithgow and J.T.
Walsh
Silent Fall is an awful feature film that would have made a
slightly less-awful TV movie. The story of an autistic boy who
witnesses a murder and the psychiatrist who tries to get him to
open up, Silent Fall is a misguided attempt to deal with a serious
issue.
The usually strong Richard Dreyfuss plays Jake Rainer, the
psychiatrist who attempts to draw young Tim Warden (Ben Faulkner)
out of his autistic coccoon when it seems that Tim was the only
witness to his parents’ murder. Along the way, Jake must contend
with a series of obstacles and red herrings: rival psychiatrist
René Harlinger (John Lithgow), who advocates controversial
drug therapy for Tim, Sheriff Mitch Rivers (J.T. Walsh), who had
more than a passing interest in the murdered couple, and the
Wardens’ comely daughter Sylvie (Liv Tyler), who soon demonstrates
more than a passing interest in Jake.
The biggest problem with Silent Fall is that the producers
couldn’t decide what kind of movie they wanted to make. Is it a
murder mystery, a psycho-drama, a suspense thriller, or a social
commentary? One thing seems clear: the filmmakers did not intend to
make a comedy, yet that is exactly what they produced. The script
is so full of clichés and the dialogue so corny that the
audience will find it laughable.
Silent Fall asks you to sit through lines like "Get me a
murderer, Jake, or I’m going to have to use Harlinger’s magic
potion on that boy" and "I saw Rain Man, Jake. I know what
autistics are capable of."
If the dialogue were the movie’s only problem, Silent Fall might
have been redeemable. But the film sinks under the weight of spotty
acting and a convoluted plot. In two central roles, Ben Faulkner
and Liv Tyler are simply not credible. Faulkner seems to be doing
an imitation of an autistic child and Tyler, the daughter of
Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, is pretty, but she can’t act. Worse
still, the talented Linda Hamilton, as Jake’s wife, and Lithgow are
totally wasted.
Silent Fall has a ridiculously contrived concluding sequence
that is drawn from a hundred other thrillers and a final scene that
misrepresents autism as curable. It’s a shame to see so much talent
go to waste, but filmgoers should be cautioned not to take this
Fall.
Lael Loewenstein
Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale
Written by Darlene Gravioto
Directed by Xavier Coller
Starring Adam Beach, Eric Shweig, Michael Gambon
It is not enough to say that Squanto is neuron-deadening pap
that falls short of the standards even of the eight-year-olds for
the putative benefit of whom it was no doubt contrived. Squanto
deserves censure in ways that elude the powers of language to
suggest. Well, it’s not that awful  Paul Veerhoven did not
direct it. At its most heinous, Squanto merely crystallizes the
present interpretation of filmdom’s most hackneyed narrative,
photographic, and dramatic conventions; at best, we see the stuff
that earned Stuart Pankin his five Cable Ace Award nominations.
The historical Squanto helped the Pilgrims endure their first
winter in the New World, teaching them both hunting and
agricultural techniques, a kindness which the Puritans graciously
repaid by infecting his tribe with syphilis (which the
realism-hounds at Disney refused to overlook). He did in fact speak
perfect English and did broker a peace between English and Patuxet
which lasted some fifty years.
The wacky Squanto (played with impassioned vacuousness by Adam
Beach) around which this film centers gets captured by conniving
fur-trappers, one of whom, Thomas Dermer (Nathaniel Parker, late of
the Royal Shakespeare Company), objects strenuously. He is
overruled by the cruel Captain Harding (Alex Norton, late of
Shakespeare repertory theater), and Squanto is wisked away to
England, and into the clutches of the nefarious Sir George (Michael
Gambon, late of Shakespeare repertory theater). In one exciting
sequence, Squanto sets Sir George’s own trained bear against him
(hats off to Erez Gudes, bear-trainer) and escapes to the rooftops
of Plymouth, then ends up unconscious on a beach where he is
rescued by monks (Pankin, and the usually respectable Messieurs
Mandy Patinkin and Donal Donnelly, all late of Shakespeare
repertory theater). To make a non-story short, Squanto teaches the
brothers lacrosse and how to make popcorn, and they help him escape
back to Connecticut, where strife and historical figures await, as
well as a startling conclusion! (Hint: it involves turkey and
cornbread.)
Director Xavier Coller has imbued Squanto with the pace and
insight of a CPR training film. UCLA alum Darlene Craviotto does
not increase the glory of the Blue and Gold with the script, which
suffers from polyanna moralizing and in all respects extreme
banality. Squanto is dull, even for kids, and shamelessly
fake-looking, and mangles history only to the further
stultification of its actors and legatees. But here’s the kicker:
DISNEY HAS BEEN MAKING THESE MOVIES FOR YEARS!
William O’Hara