Highlander: The Source DVD Review

Immortals, they say: 1. ...can only be killed with the loss of their head. 2. ...gain more power by killing other immortals. 3. ...cannot have children. 4. ...cannot make "good" movies.

I watch the "Highlander" series not for what it is but for what it tries to be. It tries to be a contemplative time traveling epic in which a man's place in this ever changing world is challenged as he learns zen and the art of head chopping. It tries to be the kind of fantasy film where the journey is half the battle--while the other half is bitching about the toll the journey takes. It tries nothing short of being all things at all times. I watch because I enjoying the sight of a series that has no clue how to pull off those traits. Instead of grand, the "Highlander" films are silly, discombobulated and lacking in any internal continuity (what happens in a "Highlander," stays in "Highlander"--and not it's sequels). And those are its best traits!

I'm always on the hunt for films I can snark on and this series has yet to disappoint. For people such as myself who live for "bad movies," especially bad mainstream movies, "Highlander" represents a classic example of a series preserved by its own incoherence. There has never been a single "Highlander" film that anyone would (or could) point to as being "good." Quite the opposite, "Highlander 2: The Quickening" stands in a pantheon of bad movies that the crude first and forgettable third aren't memorable enough to be included in. Meanwhile, the fourth "Highlander," presumably the last seeing as how it's called "Endgame," danced in circles and relied on empty action, bad wigs and even worse acting. In other words, it was another “Highlander” film. It ended on a morose note after Duncan MacLeod took on his mentor's (Christopher Lambert, the series regular) power to become the new king of emo.

So here we are. The film's far from Lambert-cool second-class hero, Adrian Paul, is a blockhead of a character who, despite being hundreds of years old, is still glacier epochs away from being a verbally cogent hero and communicates instead through facial grunts, silent anger and a lot of pouting. The film finds Dumbkin, I mean Duncan hell-bent on finding the meaning behind the legend of "there can be only one." Like all men I guess he's going through a mid-millennium crisis. This nonsense, called the Source, has long been the holy grail of the series but seems to change in nature from film to film. The creative well has run dry and, appropriately, the director of this pitiable fifth entry is, get this, Brett Leonard, the guy who made the techno 90s thrillers "The Lawnmower Man" and "Virtuosity." What has he been doing all this time? Certainly not honing his craft or reading up on the “Highlander” mythos because neither are on display here.

The film opens with the narrator and chosen-one heroine saying just about the best thing I could hope to hear from a beautiful girl in a fantasy movie. "The world has fallen into chaos and decay." Hell yeah! Cut to the Highlander hovering above the city like kilt wearing Batman. The first act ever-so-briefly returns the series to where I feel it works best: the crappy future. It opens in a world where the city seems to be swallowing itself whole. Where the apocalypse is just around the corner--"this is outside the law of CELESTIAL MECHANICS!" the computer nerd says after discovering a cosmic collision heading our way. Even more disastrous is the presence of "the Guardian," an albino immortal soldier who, it seems, has "AWAKENED!" Full of bad jokes ("thanks folks, you’ve been a great crowd, goodnight" the ancient creature says having apparently sat through a couple of Queen concerts), choppy post-production editing (used to mask the lack of visual interest) and camera tricks that obscure any good look at fluid action and swordplay we might have, about the only thing this Guardian guards is his own stylistic lameness. "THIS IS THE END OF TIME!" he says in one of many laughably bad lines. While not proving to be the end of time, this jumbled disaster of a movie does the best it can to ensure the end of the series. The film floats the hope of the story continuing ("it opens up new questions" the director says), but it does nothing to earn that. That’s like a rapist asking for a second date. The film fails in terms of the awkward villain, boring heroes and especially its plot, which moves from urban wreckage to non-apocalypse rural blandness for no good reason. The poorly designed and thinly plotted story of "Highlander: The Source" even manages to give "The Quickening" a run for its bad-movie money. But, alas, it's not even bad enough to be funny. I guess the joke's on us.

The DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Language: English Region: Region 1 Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Run Time: 86 minutes

Extras: I have long been a fan of the director Russell Mulcahy (director of the first two) and his commentaries. They brought to light the real sense of joy and life (if not exactly skill) that went into this series. Well, not only does Russell Mulcahy have nothing to do with this film (he was busy making a better apocalypse film: the kick ass “Resident Evil: Extinction”) but there are no commentaries to speak of (no pun intended). There are however a few worthwhile extras such as the hour-plus documentary titled "The Process." "We stand a good shot at doing some very interesting things with the 'Highlander' legend" series producer Peter S. Davis says without an ounce of irony (or insight) in this making-of epic. Other extras include a tribute to Bill Panzer (a documentary about the series' recently departed producer), story board comparisons and a look at the Highlander game which I’ll be sure to not play as soon as I can.