STARGATE - THE ARK OF TRUTH (2008)

Stargate - The Ark Of Truth [2008]

Actors: Ben Browder, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Claudia Black
Directors: Robert C. Cooper
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Region: 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Number of discs: 1
Studio: MGM Entertainment
DVD Release Date: March 11, 2008
Run Time: 98 minutes

Movie: * * ½
Disc: * * *

This made-for-DVD effort is a “standalone” movie in name only. Based on the now defunct long-running StarGate SG-1 television series, it is like watching a ninety minutes long episode of this TV show. This isn’t a bad thing — that is, if you’re a fan.

Ark of Truth can is however so busy wrapping up loose plot ends from the TV show that newbies will be quite nonplussed as to what exactly is happening and why they should care. It is set so deeply within the StarGate “universe” that much of the action would be meaningless to anyone who hasn’t been following the series.

For newbies such as these there is a short seven minutes “recap” with short clips from the TV series. Still, some knowledge of what exactly the stargates are is required to follow the general gist of things. (The stargates are wormholes handily left behind by an ancient technologically advanced race which allows our Earth heroes to zip across the English-speaking galaxy and land up in woods looking suspiciously like the ones found in Northern California.) It is certainly action-paced enough not for newbies to sweat plot details too much, even though some bits get bogged down so deep in expository dialogue and techno-babble that they will make even a Star Trek writer blush.

The plot involves the StarGate SG-1 team searching for an ancient artefact (the titular Ark of Truth) that will help the followers of an alien fanatical sect resembling blind medieval monks known as the Ori to see the truth about them and stop following them in their plans to take over the known galaxy. All of which makes the ark a bit like a super-powered version of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Or something like that.

WORTH IT? Long-time fans would be rewarded the most and for them Ark of Truth is recommended. (Add another star to our rating if you count yourself as a fan.)

Newbies watching this movie will probably have only two questions: Just how did half the cast of Farscape end up on StarGate SG-1? And where is MacGyver?