Highlander: The Source
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Movie Reviews of Highlander: The Source
Movie Review: No Wonder It Was Relegated To Saturday Night
Summary: 1 Stars
One of mankind's fondest dreams is no doubt to live upon this earth in vitality and youth beyond the paltry 75 to 90-odd years the healthiest among us get to enjoy. As such, one of contemporary fantasy's most compelling franchises has had to have been Highlander. The protagonist is himself immortal and gets to live indefinitely provided his head is not lopped by a fellow Immortal as these are destined to battle until there is a sole survivor among them as the catch phrase reminds the viewer "In the end there can be only one."
It has been several years since an adventure of the legendary Scotsman, but if "Highlander: The Source" is any indication, it appears he is feeling his 400 plus years.
For several years as this film plodded its way through production and distribution, fans were given hints that they would finally at last be provided with an explanation as to how the Immortals came to be in the first place. This convoluted story delivers none of that as the Source does not necessarily refer to origins.
Though Highlander: The Source ultimately falls short in terms of the story, these shortcomings are compounded by the atrocious cinematography. Though broadcast in the early to mid 90's, the old Highlander TV series had better quality effects than the latest film in the series.
For example, central to the milieu of the Highlander saga is the transfer of the quickening from the Immortal that has lost his head to the Immortal that has taken it. In the TV series, this was depicted by an impressive display of lightening bolts and electric shocks.
However, in The Source, these scenes are not nearly as impressive. The electric charges are now less distinctive artistically with the emphasis now on the head rolling away, something that was only alluded to and seldom seen in the older episodes.
Relatedly, in the TV series, the sword fights leading up to this dramatic exchange of life force were often depicted as elegant, almost dance-like encounters. However, in Highlander: The Source, these are now filmed with the same herky-jerky camera action used in many productions today such as the new Battlestar Galactica where viewers almost come away nauseated because the directors think they are too good to shoot images with a steady, smooth hand.
Highlander: The Source is such a disappointment that, if one did happen to be an Immortal, one might just very well be tempted to slit one's own throat than rather spend an eternity watching this movie for an eternity.
by Frederick Meekins
Movie Review: So very bad.
Summary: 1 Stars
Q. What do you get if you take elements from Road Warrior, Empire Strikes Back, The Fifth Element, Queen of the Damned, Stargate add a handful of science fiction movie clichés and put them in a blender with a cover band, extremely poor direction and terrible screenwriting?
A. Highlander: The Source
These are just a few of the many questions left unanswered:
Why was Duncan's estranged wife having "visions" of the Source?
Why was a cannibalistic gang of bikers and horseback riders living deep in the forest?
Why did the monks let the" Jabba the Hut" elder-monk-guy live with them in the inexplicably weird, over-guarded monastery?
After the villain broke Duncan's katana in half, why didn't' Duncan just get a new sword from one of the crazy sword-wielding monks?
Why did they bury Joe above ground, just outside the monastery door when there was a perfectly good cemetery nearby? (In fact, Joe died IN the cemetery.)
Why did the villain start singing "Princes of the Universe"? WTF. Maybe he's a Queen fan?
Why oh WHY did they play a cheesy cover version of that song later in the film?!
When the band of immortals somehow managed to get to the island that Anna had seen in her visions, why was a crazy group of dudes trying to burn some middle aged businessman alive?
And how did the immortals get an SUV full of gas to drive around the strange island?
Why was the Source hanging out on the cannibal's island?
And last but not least....how did Immortals come to be? This question, supposedly the premise of the film, was never answered. We never did find out how the immortals were created.
Actually, it is possible that some of these questions were answered, but the film was so bad I frequently became distracted by more interesting things, such as burying my face in my hands out of the sheer embarrassment that I was watching this film to begin with.
It gets one star for two reasons:
1. I cannot give it less than one star.
2. The terribleness of this movie gives it the redeeming value of being a conversation piece. Hours of fun can be had with your friends ripping apart this film while laughing hysterically.
Movie Review: "Highlander The Worst", would have been a better title!
Summary: 1 Stars
After reading through all the terrible (quite humorous) reviews, I expected this movie to be a real piece of crap... and guess what, it lived up to it. I only spent $1 to rent it, which was too much, not to mention 80 minutes of my life were wasted. If I owned this DVD, I would probably burn it and try hard to forget I ever watched it. I thought Highlander the series, was a great show, with great storylines and outstanding actors and fight sequences. This movie, lacking any quality, dosen't even resemble any of the previous episodes, except for misplaced dialog between the original characters of the series. Putting Duncan McCloed, Methos, and Joe Dawson in this movie setting and storyline, is like putting Clint Eastwood in a Conan the Barbarian Movie. This movie was so terrible, it may have destroyed the acting careers of otherwise excellent actors of the original series. Peter Windfield and Adrian Paul, what were you thinking... The Director should be shot, before he produces more crappy movies that may destroy the careers of otherwise good actors. The fight scenes in this movie were also terrible enough to be humorous. Fights were show in fast motion that could only be described as Benny Hill meets the Albino from outer space. The "bad guy" known as the "Guardian" was so stupid, that I almost laughed myself into a comma watching him. His scary calling card was "Hellloooo", WOW, how original! He talked like he just stepped off the short bus, and looked like a S&M Albino. The storyline was so stale and uninteresting, that I almost fell asleep before half the movie was over. I don't think the Director or writers of this movie ever saw a Highlander the Series episode ever, because Duncan and Methos were portrayed more like enemies, than good friends, and the storyline was like a cheap rip off of a already crappy movie called "Highlander 2". After watching this piece of trash, it almost ruins my opinions of the characters of the original highlander series, and makes me wish I could erase all memory of seeing the talented Adrian Paul, Peter Winfield, and Jim Byrnes trying to act through this unbearable, ridiculous, twisted lame excuse of a movie written and directed my untalented dullards.Movie Review: Worst of the series (which is saying a lot)
Summary: 1 Stars
The Highlander movies have always been something of a crapshoot. The first one was a classic. The second one was universally panned. The third you either loved it or hated it.
The fourth (Endgame) was probably the only sequel that many would agree as being worthy of the original. At the very least it was better than the other sequels and seemed to get the movie's back on track to being something that's worthwhile.
Unfortunately, The Source is a drastic step back. I would dare to say that it's even worse than Highlander 2 (a movie that I myself gave one star to in my review only because Amazon doesn't allow for less).
What made this movie so bad that I would rate it as being worse than even the most panned Highlander film ever created?
The photography has the color washed out much in the style of Crow II City of Angels. It's very hard to look at and gave me a headache just looking at it.
The action just didn't work well. Most of the scenes with the Guardian were cat and mouse (pounce you're dead) scenes that had very little actual fighting. The few scenes that had actual sword fighting were mostly obscured in odd special effects that made the actors look like they were zipping around all over the place when in reality they were standing static with only the minimum of arm movement.
This is a movie franchise that is based in sword fighting. The sword fighting should be well-choreographed fights that thrill the audience, not static shots with shadow trails that give the illusion of movement.
The plot was also thin. It amounted to `follow her, she knows where to go.' `Let's go here.' Fight sequence. `Let's go here.' Fight sequence. Rinse, lather, repeat. You needn't worry about too many spoilers, because that's the whole movie right there.
I was really hoping I'd enjoy this. After Highlander Endgame, I honestly thought that the franchise was finally going somewhere I could appreciate. But then they follow it up with this. I never thought I'd say this, but if this is all Hollywood is willing to give us from now on with the Highlander series, I'd just as soon they drop it.
Movie Review: I would give this a negative number rating if I could...
Summary: 1 Stars
Being the generous soul that I am, I'm going to save you an hour and a half of your life. Do you wish to know how bad this movie is? Let's put it this way: VFX Magazine named Highlander 2 (both version) as the "worst sequel ever made"-and it was by a landslide too, folks. That is how bad that movie was. This movie makes that one look like an Oscar caliber masterpiece.
Apparently, someone watched the Underworld movies and thought using blue lenses to add "effect" was a great idea. No, it wasn't. Someone else thought it was a brilliant idea to completely screw up the whole myth of the Immortals and make the story look more idiotic and contrived. No, it wasn't. And someone else thought it was a super idea to kill off a character that could have actually contributed something like it was an afterthought. No, it wasn't.
This movie was so horrid I couldn't believe I sat through the last half hour and then I couldn't believe that I actually turned it back on and watched the rest of it off and on through increments and didn't threaten to sue SciFi for stealing two hours of my life. Not even Methos could save this movie-and he made Endgame (or at least his part in Endgame) watchable. Methos could make just about anything Highlander related watchable (you can tell I liked him from the show). That is how much this movie sucked. It was so bad that I could write better-someone who has no real training in creative writing and never worked in any sort of entertainment industry who could put out better material than the two writers who actually got paid to do so instead of being fired out of a cannon and into the sun like they should have been.
If anyone can ask how the hell this even got developed and not laugh, I would actually care to know. I doubt anyone can actually answer, that's how bad it is. If they do bring back the series, at least stay away from the MacLeods next time. Their story became dead and buried with Connor.
Worst. Movie. Ever. (And I saw Troy and Leprechaun 4 as well...and I thought it couldn't get any worse. Clearly, I was wrong.)