Let's face it. There is only one true Highlander movie, and that is the first
one. All the subsequent sequels have been bad movies. Let's face it. The
second tried too hard to explain how there could be a sequel after the utter
closure of the first one, and in doing so explained the origin of the immortals
and gave it a sci-fi twist and totally screwed the entire thing up. The third
pretended the second had never happened, and didn't even bother to try to
explain how there could be a sequel after the closure of the first. At least
this fourth one (which ties in with the TV series) explains how there could
a sequel after the closure of the first (though, admittedly, still not to my
own personal satisfaction). And, let's face it, it doesn't break the pattern
of Highlander sequels: It's a bad movie.
Oh, and ere I forget, Christopher Lambert plays good ol' Connor McLeoud, whilst
Adrian Paul plays Duncan McLeoud (yes, they're related, but distant by a couple
of centuries). Both are immortals. Immortals, claims the introduction as spoken
by Lambert, are beings whose origin is unknown. They can only be killed by
cutting off their heads. And if an immortal kills another immortal, then he
recieves that immortal's power (and the power of any subsequent immortals that
his victim has bested). Immortals live to fight eachother, and the last one
remaining gets The Prize, which has never been fully explained (except at the
end of the first.... can we say "unneeded sequels" boys and girls?).
Got it? Good.
The movie's villain is a man bent on revenge against Connor. He's supposedly
"the ultimate evil," according to the promos. This man never really struck me
as being all that evil. Personally, while this guy is easily hated, the villain
in the original Highlander is much more menacing and much more of an evil
character than this guy ever attains. He's a powerful immortal who has killed
more immortals than any yet. He's powerful, if he attains The Prize then it's
over the the entire human race. Blah blah blah.
This was hard to take seriously. As I say, he never seemed nearly as menacing
as the villain from the first movie. Actually, most of the movie was hard to
take seriously. It went from looking like it would be a good movie to degrading
to cheese and just turning into a bad movie. There were elements from the TV
series that weren't explained at all (some were explained, just not at all fully)
and a lot of under-used secondary villains (ie: cronies)... especially that kick-
ass Asian fighter! Toss in a pointless sex scene, and you've got...
...well, not a very good movie.
It's hard to explain why it was so bad, but I just didn't enjoy it. I was
expecting something a bit more climactic and more final. I didn't get that.
I was disappointed with a number of things, actually, none of which I can say
without giving away interesting plot points to the movie, but that final
fight sequence was beyond anti-climactic, and some of the morphing effects
near the end were just bad choices and looked horrible.
Final verdict? Some good fight scenes (save the last one), but overall it's
not really worth your time to see... unless you're big Highlander fan, somebody
else is paying for you, you've rented it, or you're really bored and it's on
TV at three in the morning.