Adrian Paul, Peter Wingfield, Jim Byrnes

Eulogy: We’re gathered here today to mourn the passing of the once-victorious ‘’Highlander’’ franchise. ‘’Highlander’’, born in 1986, has had a long career, one as fruitful as it was thwarting. Despite all its injustices it never laid down its kilt, continuing to fight even after the scoreboard reflected a negative count. It made us laugh, made us cry, made us cheer, made us buy Queen CDs, and at times, made us cringe. Now let us stand and sing…. Princes of the Universe.

The ‘’Highlander’’ series is like a See-Saw: its always up and down. But with this latest instalment, the long-awaited ‘’Highlander: The Source’’, chances are it’ll stay down – for good.

Most of the ‘’Highlander’’ sequels have sucked, that we can all agree on, but compared to this latest chapter in the Gregory Widen-created franchise – they’re just fine. They may have been hammy, the effects could’ve used some work and Christopher Lambert (who doesn’t return for this one – being killed off in the previous film) could’ve used an on-set acting coach, but they were all at least polished pictures that had their ‘moments’.

The only ‘moment’ you’re likely to remember in ‘’The Source’’ is the one where the screen fades to black and a ‘directed by’ credit appears on the screen – because its director Brett Leonard (“Man Thing”) who’ll you’ll be wanting to try out those new karate moves on after sitting through the travesty. The fate of the series rested in his hands… and he let it slip through, drop and shatter.

Not that Leonard deserves every punch, the producers deserve your left hook too – they, after all, carried ahead with the film even after finding out they’d be doing it with no money, no enthuse and well, no idea.

‘’The Source’’, I’m sure, would’ve read OK on paper - Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul) is called back into action to discover the origins of the ‘first’ Immortal (who lies somewhere between Romania and a green-screen) - it has an interesting enough storyline, but what kills it are the production values – they’re just tragic! This needed to be done on $50 million dollars, not $50.

You know those cheap after school series’? - The children’s programmes that have a budget of about twenty five bucks and look like they were shot on a personal handy cam? Well that’s how this one looks – absolutely repulsive. It should NOT have been released. (It’s not surprising that the film bypassed theatres and instead debuted on the Sci-Fi channel in the states).

The production values of the ‘’Highlander’’ films are usually always first-rate (even on ‘’The Quickening’’ – considered, before this one, to be the worst of the series), to see one reduced to looking as cheap and tacky as this is just depressing. The effects look like they were doing a VIC-20 (remember those folks?); the fight scenes are atrocious (and they’ve been so sped up that they become unwatchable) and based on their languid performances, it’s clear all the actors in the film knew they were swimming in a river of shit, too. It’s a pity too, because star Adrian Paul, who plays Duncan MacLeod in the movie (and the original “Highlander” TV series), is quite good – and seems to have his character down pat. He was a great addition to the last “Highlander” flick, “Highlander: Endgame”, and no one much complained when it looked like he’d be the one headlining the movie series from here on out. Alas, both actor and character are wasted here. Something tells me you’ve just seen the last of Connor MacLeod (if not all the MacLeods - - - until the inevitable remake of the first film).

The scary part of all this is that the producers spent the last couple of years trying to fix-it – now what on earth did they fix!? Because there’s not one redeemable bit of footage in this thing! It’s simply a shambles now, what was it before? If you aren’t laughing at the production values (I was giggling all the way through the travesty), you’re struggling to keep your eyes open – it’s a bore and a half.

If helmer Leonard had been able to shoot a couple of good swordplay scenes (he can’t, not to save his life – hence the reason they’re all sped-up and murky) or make it a little less listless, the film might’ve been salvageable. Might’ve been, I say, because it would’ve been a task. And obviously, the filmmaker didn’t much give a darn or he would’ve at least tried.

‘’Highlander: The Source’’ makes ‘’Highlander II : The Quickening’’ look like well,. “Highlander’’. Quite simply, there “Should have been only…” 4.

Someone was definitely on ‘The Sauce’ when they greenlit ‘The Source’.

Just disgusting that it’s even out there.

No Extras (Not all surprised. Everyone’s probably just keen to cut their losses and run here).

Rating :
Reviewer : Clint Morris