Zachary Samuels, Alistair Abell, Janyse Jaud

It must have seemed like the perfect scheme. It sure sounds great on paper – take the director from ''Ninja Scroll'' and get him to direct a ''Highlander'' movie set in the future with robot Nazis in it. Gold – solid gold! Cut and print! But alas, alack, it isn’t quite that easy. Your director, plot, setting, and villains can all be awesome, but if it doesn’t come together, then, well, it doesn’t come together. You don’t have a movie, you have an hour and a half of visual excess.

If those two are one and the same for you, then you’re in for a treat with ''Highlander: Search for Vengeance''. The story takes us forward to the year 2197, a blasted, hellish landscape scoured by ‘terrorism and global warming’. That just barely gets you over the line for a post-apocalyptic setting – what ever happened to a good old nuclear war? They may as well have chosen the ‘scourge of littering and adult illiteracy’.

No matter. Late 22nd Century New Jersey is a swamp filled with degenerate punks. Wandering this hell-scape is Colin McCloud of the Clan McCloud. Unassuming in his headband and trenchcoat, his dour countenance masks two millennia of pent up rage – back in the 2nd century, a Roman commander killed his wife. A chance encounter with a friendly neighbourhood insurgent prostitute triggers several flashback sequences worth of memories, in which Colin and Marcus clash again and again throughout the ages. Each time, Marcus finds his gig as local fascist ruined by Colin’s freedom fighters. And each time, Colin gets his arse handed to him by the superior swordsmanship of a stoic, immortal centurion.

The pieces fall into place when Colin spots a community service announcement on the Times Square Jumbo-Tron. Shock! Horror! The guy who’s built himself a gold pyramid atop a 300-storey monolith in Central Park is none other than Marcus. The neo-nazis, the storm trooper robots? The sinister genetic experiments? More Marcus malevolence. He’s likeable, as villains go. Larger, stronger, and smarter than Colin, he also has a hotter love interest, and likes to play electric guitar on the balcony of his gargantuan palace. He’s a smooth operator – you almost want him to win.

After Marcus throws him off a skyscraper, Colin reluctantly agrees to join forces with the rebels to better slay the gladius-twirling prick. Further dream sequences – and frequent commentary from a shape-shifting druid ghost that only Colin can see – suggest that he’s now bonking the latest reincarnation of the Highlander’s one true love. The climax is extraordinarily violent, yet ultimately true to the franchise.

The two biggest influences on this film are Kawajiri’s two previous high watermarks. The plot premise (wandering swordsman versus immortal dictator) and character designs have been lifted almost exactly from ''Ninja Scroll''; they may have even re-used some of the animation. It wouldn’t surprise us. As for the bug-eyed hooker love interest, she’s a carbon copy of Leila from ''Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust''. She even has the same haircut. ''Search For Vengeance'' does a good job of showing what it would be like to live forever, because you feel like you’ve seen the same thing a thousand times before.

Many of the action sequences are stellar, and a great deal of Kawajiri’s trademark grotesque genius hits the screen. Yet the writing lets him down, giving him little room to move in the numerous, largely redundant flashbacks. One wonders what kind of madness he could have worked in with a little more creative leeway. As it stands, this feels more like a straight-to-video potboiler – great fun, but not exactly high art.

Extras include : A featurette (‘East Meets West: Filmmakers Crossing Borders’), an interview (‘A Talk With Kawajiri’), some trailers, and a ‘Stills, Drawings & Studies’ gallery.

Rating :
Reviewer : James Cottee