Highlander: Endgame

The fourth in the Highlander movie series. This action movie was released in September 2000. It was directed by Douglas Aarniokoski. It was written by Gillian Horvath, William N. Panzer, and Joel Soisson. The cast includes Christopher Lambert, Adrian Paul, Bruce Payne, Ian Paul Cassidy, Donnie Yen, Lisa Byrnes, Peter Wingfield, Jim Byrnes, Adam Copeland and more.

For centuries, we've been told there can be only one.

Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) and Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul) are Immortals. They can't die until unless their heads are cut off. Each time an Immortal takes another Immortal's head they absorb the dead's life force. The goal of "The Game" is to be the last Immortal left. "The Prize" is mortality, knowledge, power... Connor has taken himself out of "The Game" but a mysterious Immortal forces him back into it. The mysterious Immortal, Kell (Bruce Payne), has a group of Immortal henchmen. That group includes Faith (Lisa Barbuscia) the wife of Duncan. It also includes Jin (Donnie Yen) an Immortal that has some awesome moves. Kell has had a grudge against Connor ever since Connor killed his father and has devoted his immortal life to taking from Connor anything he has ever loved. Kell is also one of the most powerful Immortals with an enormous amount of confirmed kills according to The Watchers. The Watchers are a secret organization of mortals that keeps tabs on the happenings of the Immortals and documents them. Now Kell has revealed himself to both Connor and Duncan and he must be stopped nobody wants to see him win "The Prize".

This movie is basically an hour and a half long version of the TV series. If you like the TV series than this isn't bad thing. Some of the regulars from the series show up, like Methos (Peter Wingfield) and Joe Dawson (Jim Byrnes). The fighting scenes were pretty well done. The special effects were good. The action was good. I just didn't think anything really new or major happened in this movie. Oh sure there is some intense moments and one major thing happens. I thought it was good, but I didn't get a "wow" watching it, like the first movie, and some of the TV shows.

Basically I think this movie was a passing of the torch type movie. From what I hear Lambert was getting tired of the movies so this is a setup to make more with Paul. I am waiting to see what is done with the first all Duncan movie. Although the TV series kind of exhausted most possible plots, hopefully they can still think of something cool and throw out a curveball to wow the fans.

Oh, the fighting scenes! Oh, the fighting scenes. I, as any well-thinking fan of the show, find the fighting scenes extremely important. That is partly why I found H:E (for the extremely lazy) so disappointing.

Part of the show's charm was its production values; very polished, but never flashy. Unfortunately, one can not say the same of this movie. Oh Matrix, what hath ye wrought? Instead of brilliant choreography (the hallmark, in my opinion, of the series), the movie mixes exceedingly flashy cinematography with goofy one liners. The action is often hard to see, thanks to a mixture of disorienting camerawork and dim sets.

And the one-liners. Oh, the one-liners! Once again, Highlander, known for being able to mix the funny with the melodramatic with pleasurable results, has fallen out of proportion. The stereotypical nigger (and I mean this not as slur, only as an accurate representation of the most demeaning portrayal of African-Americans as ignorant and foolish {and also deserving of being bumped off by their masters in the first 20 minutes... whatever)} one might think of, saying "I told ya I wuz gonna cut'cha!" is a pretty good representation of the level of wit of these gems. And they don't stop. Even in the climatic and melodramatic final battle, our immortal hero can't refrain from ending it (and the movie) with a stupid, stupid, stupid one-liner. How the once-proud have fallen.