The Ori storyline was a nice breath of fresh air during Stargate SG-1's final two seasons. They took over as the big bad guys, which the Goa'uld were for the first 8 seasons of the show's run. It should have been 7, but that's another story. Anyway, the final two seasons of the series was mostly enjoyable and engaging because of this new threat, where they spread fear and chaos throughout the universe. Didn't hurt that they had cool-looking ships that could kick the crap out of an entire fleet. You'd think the final few episodes of the series would result in some sort of epic defeat of the Ori, right? Nah, instead, it's more centered around the characters themselves. Shoot, the final episode of the series deals with the team being stuck together on a ship while everything around them moves at an extremely slow pace.
That brings us to Stargate: The Ark of Truth, a movie that's basically the end of the Ori plot. This could have been a great movie to watch, but it's not. It just ends up being a drawn-out Stargate SG-1 episode that throws in the Ori finale in some areas for the hell of it. The start of the movie is fine, because it basically sets things up for later on in the film. I even found the sequence where they slowly move through the Super Gate to be good, as well. However, things quickly go downhill from there as a completely unnecessary threat makes its introduction in the movie. Who or what is the threat? The Replicators. Basically, some idiot on board the ship they were on creates a Replicator, thinking it would help destroy the Ori, and, of course, it manages to escape its barrier and make more Replicators in the process.
This side-story sadly takes up most of the second half of the movie, making the Ori story seem like it's not even the main focus of the movie. And it's not like nothing new or important happens on the ship while the Replicators slowly take over it. They do what they did in the series: crawl around everywhere, replicating everything they can. They try to spice things up by turning that one idiot into a Replicator and making him fight one of the SG-1 members, but that itself ends up being a drawn-out fight. There's this one cool moment where it blows up and then gets back up in a robotic, skeletal form, but that's it. Meanwhile, the Ori storyline does absolutely nothing at this point in the movie. The other half of SG-1 finds the Ark of Truth, then they get captured. That's all. It's only till the final minutes of the movie that they manage to escape and use the Ark of Truth, resulting in the end of the Ori.
If they would have just taken out that silly Replicator subplot, this movie might have been better. Though, judging by what happened to the Ori plot during the second half of the movie, maybe not. They probably would have drawn things out even longer for the Ori storyline, but even then, it could have been better. Like, we probably would have gotten more character development for the characters through conversations. It would have been much better than the split-up tactic they used in the movie, where they barely had any time to interact with one another at all. In the end, Stargate: The Ark of Truth ends up being a disappointment as an end to the Ori saga, which makes it just a disappointing movie. Hopefully, the next movie will be much better.
Overall Rating: 5/10