The general attitude going into this movie is half-skeptical, half-excited: on the one hand, direct-to-DVD rarely bodes well and Ark of Truth, while not bad on the whole, could have been a lot better; on the other hand, it's a new SG movie, it's got Jack, Goa'uld instead of Ori, whohoo! The verdict? Two words, people.
It's Good!
Continuum redeems the whole "SG1 movies" idea. True, Ark of Truth wasn't such a hard act to follow, but this goes above and beyond the "better than the first film" label. It's a true SG1 story, like we used to get'em in the first seasons. Plenty of adventure (they can't seem to get a break throughout the whole film), interspersed with the small moments we loved throughout the series: the one-liners (yes, Jack's got some lines, but most come from Mitchell), the technobabble (Sam still doesn't get to finish a phrase w/o being interrupted), the hard choices. And a taste of the good old Goa'uld arrogance we all know and love, to boot.
The characters each get their spotlight moment. Mitchell shines throughout, indeed this seemed to be a movie made to show he well and truly belongs to SG1 outside the Ori arc, as well. Daniel gets his moments, as well as Sam, and we get to see both of them interact with Jack once again! On the Goa'uld front, we are treated to a whole parade of former system lords, pretty much anyone you can think of. Baal, of course, is his usual charming evil self. And we get a great new villain in the person of Quetesh, who personifies the perfect Goa'uld queen: subservient, double-faced, deadly. Almost wish she'd been there for the first seasons of the show!
The quality is very good, most scenes would have done very well on a big screen. Effects, great, but then that's nothing new. In short, this movie delivers what it promised: an epic SG1 adventure and a great character show. I'd originally given it 8 stars, but by comparison to Ark of Truth, it gets an extra one. Totally worth the money, can't wait to own the DVD.
