Highlander: The Source (2007, Brett Leonard)

I wish there were nice things to say about Highlander: The Source. I wish every statement didn’t have to have a qualifier. For example, Adrian Paul is almost fine. He’s got a badly written part but he’s game for it. Same goes for Peter Wingfield, who’s a little less almost fine. He’s bad but his part is even worse written. And so on through the supporting cast. Until you get to Jim Byrnes, who’s just bad.

But The Source has a very specific audience in mind. It’s for people who loved the “Highlander” TV show so much they don’t care about the movie being bad. The film doesn’t ask for anything except to be engaged on those terms. It’s a franchise popular enough to get investors but not buyers. In terms of film industry history, “Highlander” is actually somewhat relevant. It helped prime the world for fantasy and sci-fi properties to be successful, while not successful itself. It fell on its sword.

Stephen Kelvin Watkins and Mark Bradley’s script takes itself way too seriously for The Source to be any fun. Director Leonard doesn’t have his moments because, even though he knows how to compose a Panavision frame at least somewhat competently, he’s shooting on crappy video and cinematographer Steve Arnold can’t shoot it. There’s lots of poorly matched digital backdrops in The Source. It’s knowingly incompetent, begging for an incomplete mark versus a fail; a technical cop out.

I wanted to be so enthused about The Source I was going to post an intentionally misguided response, something about it taking place in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Highlander 2 or having to do with the other planet but it’s not worth it. In the end, I’m just glad Thekla Reuten didn’t get too embarrassed by her lame part. Reuten’s pretty good for a lot of her performance and then the third act just flushes her part.

Not many people should see The Source. I’ve seen every one of the Highlander movies and I shouldn’t have seen The Source. I’ll bet people who worked on The Source never even watched The Source. It’s a feature length fan film made on the budget of a television commercial. It just happens to be produced by the rights owners. The Source isn’t about being accessible or generally rewarding. It’s not even about being good. But it’s also not worth any more words.

Highlander: Endgame (2000, Douglas Aarniokoski)

For all intents and purposes, there’s nothing nice to say about Highlander: Endgame. Maybe there’s an almost all right moment between Lisa Barbuscia and Adrian Paul. They’re married, but estranged. They’re both immortal, something he didn’t tell her before killing her to bring about her immortal existence. It’s terribly handled in the flashback sequences and not exactly done well in the modern day stuff, but Paul can emote serious without actually being able to act serious and Barbuscia really isn’t bad when she’s not playing an evil tough guy. It’s like Paul and Barbuscia remembered a better scene from an acting class and tried it out in Endgame. But, otherwise, it’s bereft of quality.

Joel Soisson’s script isn’t good, but it’s not utter crap. It’s mildly competent. If director Aarniokoski had any ability whatsoever, the film would have moved. But there’s also Douglas Milsome’s awful photography, the six terrible editors, the lame music, the cheap looking sets, the lousy special effects. Even Christopher Lambert deserves better than Aarniokoski. Lambert’s a trooper. He’s bad, but he’s willing. Aarniokoski doesn’t do anything with him. Aarniokoski’s camera doesn’t have any connection with the characters. It’s so bad. Aarniokoski does a really, really bad job. And Milsome enables some of it.

Because, Endgame is a part of what was once an almost reputable cult franchise. Things went wrong, but Highlander was an HBO hit in the eighties when HBO movie hits mattered. And Endgame is even more horrifying because it actually tries really hard to be a sequel to the original movie. It can’t be a sequel to the original because it’s a sequel to the TV show, but it wants to pretend. Aarniokoski doesn’t care enough pretend, but Lambert and the script want to pretend. So it’s depressing. It’s actually depressing.

Endgame is about pitying the people who tried to care about it. Not just the actors, but the audience. Watching this movie makes you feel bad for the other people who have seen it.

Lousy performance from Bruce Payne as the villain. It’d be laughable but it always feels like there’s a chance Payne is intentionally doing vamp camp so maybe it’s somehow brilliant. But it can’t be because Aarniokoski’s bad at directing actors too. He’s bad at filming actors act. It’s an incredibly poorly directed film. It’s stunning.

Oh, and Donnie Yen’s good. Beatie Edney too. She manages to have class, which is something because there’s no class anywhere else in this picture.

It doesn’t even move well. It’s less than ninety minutes and there’s always action and it doesn’t even move. Endgame is the pits.

Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994, Andrew Morahan), the European version

About the only complementary thing in Highlander: The Final Dimension is Steven Chivers’s photography. The film’s got a terrible color palette, which isn’t a surprise since all of director Morahan’s decisions are bad, but Chivers never lets the film look cheap. It’s clearly cheap, but Chivers refuses to acknowledge it. It’s kind of cool. But only with a qualifier or two, because the crappy color palettes are a real problem. Most of Morahan’s direction is bad and Chivers does nothing to alleviate its damage on the film.

Well, I suppose there really isn’t much you could do for Final Dimension. A better director would have helped, but only so much. It’s one of those pictures not just without anything going for it, but without anything good in it. Deborah Kara Unger arguably gives the film’s best performance, but only because it’s the least worst. Unless you count Mako, who stands in for Sean Connery in this entry. He manages to keep a straight face opposite Christopher Lambert.

Final Dimension is one of those too craven sequels. It borrows story beat after story beat from the first film–though Unger doesn’t even get to be the damsel in distress, Lambert’s got a little kid to threaten in this entry. As that little kid, Gabriel Kakon is atrocious. No surprise, but Morahan can’t direct actors either. So it’s like watching all the action from the first film done in Panavision by a bad director shooting it in Canada. With photographer Chivers trying so hard to distract from its lack of domestic shooting locations, he just makes the film look terrible to hide it. Like I said, it’s kind of admirable. Chivers can clearly do a better job–lighting this terrible palette takes skills–but he doesn’t. There’s no excelling in the Final Dimension.

As the villain, Mario Van Peebles is almost funny. He’s just strange enough not to be sad, but he’s not strange enough to be interesting. A lot of it is an objectively bad performance. Some of it has the promise of a better performance. Again, Morahan. Also, it’s a terrible script. What is anyone going to do with a terrible script? Unger tries with her crusading archeologist bit but once the film gets her clothes off, it stops giving her anything to do.

Really bad performance from Martin Neufeld as the angry cop who’s after Lambert. Final Dimension fails on every level. It can’t even do bit parts well. It doesn’t have a script going for it, doesn’t have a director, doesn’t have production values (awful music from J. Peter Robinson, bad editing from Yves Langlois), but it doesn’t even have a good casting director. Maybe because there’s no credited casting director.

It’s a movie with a terrible Christopher Lambert performance I don’t even want to pick on. It’s such a bad script, turning Lambert into a nineties action hero dad while more T–800 than Highlander… it’s not a fair fight. Amid all the crappy work in Highlander: The Final Dimension, there apparently can be only one to do the crappiest work and it’s screenwriter Paul Ohl.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991, Russell Mulcahy)

Highlander II: The Quickening has had a reputation as a sequel disaster since its release. Outside of “Starlog” write-ups, did anyone ever pretend to be excited about this film? But since its initial release (and multiple home video re-releases with different editing), The Quickening has actually gotten to be a wonderful time capsule of its era and situation.

The film is desperate. It goes all out. People like hoverboards from Back to the Future Part II, let’s have hoverboards. The ladies liked stars Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery with long hair in the first one, let’s do all long hair in the second one. Highlander 2 ought to be subtitled Big Hair and Big Swords because it’s desperate enough to give villain Michael Ironside long hair, presumably to make him… sexy?

Now. Ironside. Real quick. He ought to look embarrassed and he doesn’t. He gets through. John C. McGinley not so much, but Ironside gets through. He’s the lamest early nineties movie villain–a mix of the savage punk villain from the previous Highlander and Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Batman–but Ironside does get through it.

Sean Connery’s actually okay enough. Lambert’s bad but how could anyone be good. He’s so bad he’s better under the old age make-up at the beginning than when he’s young again.

Virginia Madsen is not good as the love interest. It’s a terrible part, but she’s still not good. Oh, look, a metaphor for the entire film. It’s terrible for multiple reasons, but it could never be good. Even when Highlander 2 does something right for a little while, it gets screwed up. Director Mulcahy has a handful of decent concepts, but they’re either too short or ultimately fail. And when it seems like a perfect Mulcahy moment–many of the sets are enormous so Mulcahy can do his swinging crane shots–he never takes advantage. It’s puzzling and disconcerting.

Weird score from Stewart Copeland, weirder pop soundtrack. Both are bad, but interesting in their weirdness. Like everything else, they’re desperate to appear hip. Peter Bellwood’s lousy script apes corporations as bad guys from Robocop and Total Recall, bringing along poor Ironside from that latter as well. Highlander 2 is a sequel to a cable and home video hit desperately trying to be a cable and home video hit.

I suppose it’s oddly appropriate a film about immortality is also such a perfect time capsule of a popular filmmaking era. It’s such a perfect example of it, I’m only moderately embarrassed to have written over 400 words about it right now.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991, Russell Mulcahy), the international version

When subjecting myself to Highlander II, I wanted to find the worst version possible. Over the years, the director and then the producers have returned to the film and tried to edit the footage into something more palatable. Of course, these attempts are not just hampered by the use of existing footage (it’s not like there’s some great version lost out there), but also by the fact the film’s one of the worst acted motion pictures in the medium (at least by professional actors).

So the version I watched has all the alien planet references, which contradict the first movie, among other assaults on the intellect. Given I don’t like the first one–it’s far better than this one though–I don’t really care about the continuity. I care more about things like Christopher Lambert essentially forcing himself on Virginia Madsen. One of his new magical powers is Love Potion #9… or she just got Stockholm Syndrome super fast.

Madsen might give the best performance. Either her or Sean Connery. Both are pretty bad by regular standards, but when they’re giving these performances amid Lambert, Michael Ironside (who might give a worse performance than Lambert, which is extraordinary) and John C. McGinley (did he ever work again after this one?)….

I spent about half the movie wondering what a well-budgeted, well-scripted Russell Mulcahy effort would be like–then remembered The Shadow (which is superb). Even though he’s shooting idiotic material and bad performances, Mulcahy’s talent is clearly visible.

Highlander (1986, Russell Mulcahy)

Almost nothing in Highlander works. There’s the maniac driving scene at the end, that one works pretty well–with the exception of the unrelated car crashes cut in. In that scene, Clancy Brown really embraces the absurdity of his role and Russell Mulcahy shoots Roxanne Hart so well, she can’t help but be good (to be fair, all she has to do is scream). There are also some good transitions (the fish tank and the Mona Lisa fade). Michael Kamen’s score has its high points (though he recycled a lot of it in Die Hard), the Queen music’s good.

But otherwise?

It’s an incompetent mess. The script’s a joke–the kind of thing a bunch of twelve year-old boys would come up with. Even if there were good moments in the script, someone would ruin them. Mulcahy cannot convey a narrative. He’s a beautiful director, but his use of wide angle, perception-distorting lenses is silly. Lots of Highlander looks like great montage shots, except they’re used in continuous action instead. Hart’s bad. Christopher Lambert’s performance is astounding. His subsequent career–not to mention his fan base–is inexplicable. And the way Mulcahy directs him? Highlander could play as a comedy, if it weren’t so well-lighted by cinematographer Gerry Fisher. Peter Honess’s editing is also sublime.

Some credit has to be given to the production for its ability to overlook its own stupidity. Nothing in the film–down to the impromptu homophobia, the chatty skid row motel clerk or the survivalist (who cruises Manhattan looking for trouble)–is ever insincere. The filmmakers really think they’re producing quality product here. It’s just too humorless for them to think otherwise.

Highlander suffers from being a dumb idea, poorly written, then poorly produced. I first saw Highlander, like most other people, on video (or maybe it was HBO… I think Highlander was an HBO hit). Maybe the movie’s just more suited for a nine year-old’s intellect (which does not explain why it gained a following of adults, of course), but it seems to just get more unimpressive with each viewing. I last saw it maybe eight years ago and was still a lot more impressed with the final sword fight. I don’t know what I was thinking, since there’s no suspense to it (Lambert never gets hit) and it’s really rather short.

With the possible exception of the Scottish clan battle at the beginning, the movie’s lack of epic scope is sort of surprising. The urban setting doesn’t lend itself, I suppose. This time, I made sure to watch the theatrical version, which is much less stupid than the director’s cut. Now, that thought’s scary… that Highlander could be even stupider.