Thursday, April 1, 2010

Movie Review: Highlander 5: The Source: Part Two



Blogger's note: Spoilers for Highlander 5.

In Highlander 5, A group of both immortals and mortals decide to search for ‘The Source’, the original of all their power. Among them is Methos and Joe Dawson (from the t.v show), Anna (Duncan MacLeod’s 9th billionth former love interest number), and Reggie, Givovanni and Zai, your local cannon fodder ready and willing to serve you. Duncan doesn’t really care about the plot, and would rather sit on rooftops either pretending that he’s batman, or moping about the fact that Anna broke up with him because they can’t have children together.



Oh lookie a Highlander rule that hasn’t been broken yet. I wonder how this will turn out.

All of that changes when a mysterious Guardian of the Source turns up and proclaims that 1) Anna will find the Source through mystic visions and 2) He is disappointed that immortals could have been Kings, and they threw it all away.

And you know what? The Guardian is absolutely frigging right. The idea of a tournament is useless as proven in Highlander 4. There is no reason why a group of immortals couldn't have banded together and made the world something better instead of the apocalyptic wasteland it apparently has become. But hey, I’m sure they’re doing more important things. Like sitting on rooftops.

If I talk about every flaw and gripe I have about this movie, this will be a very long review, so I’ll try and sum up as best as I can. Mopey Macloud and the rest continue hunting for the Source, progressively becoming weaker to a point of becoming mortal (Gee, I wonder if now would be a good time to quit). They face cannibals for some reason, Anna gets kidnapped, most of the actors have fled the movie at this point, until finally only Doopey Dunacan is left.

So let’s talk about the climax of the film. In fact let’s talk about all the fight scenes in Highlander 5, which is actually pretty easy. There are none. No matter how bad or good the rest of the Highlander films are, they at least have some decent sword fighting. With the exception of some cool guy called Zai and 30 seconds of martial arts, we get either special effects or guys bumbling around who don’t know which end a sword is pointed. Duncan, you were in the Highlander T.V show for six years. Shouldn’t you have picked up something by now?

Anyway, Duncan defeats the Guardian, but since the Source is about life, not death (you know, despite all the main characters ha ha, dying) Duncan spares the Guardian’s life and condemns him to a cursed existence forever. Nice.

So now we get to the Source, and I’m psyched. It’s gotta be some kind of solution to the apocalypse problem, right? Or maybe the Source offers some fresh new insight on the immortals that will change everything and breathe new life to this series. Or it could be Duncan and Anna stripping down and getting jiggy with it. Guess which ending it is.

FINAL GRADE: 1 1/2 out of 5. The only thing that surprised me about this film is that they got Josh Groban to sing the soundtrack. What, did they kidnap the guy or something?

I absolutely love the intro to this movie: 'The world has fallen into chaos and decay. There is no law, no justice. Only death and destruction.' And then a cop car pulls up and a criminal runs away.

1 comment:

Nerine Dorman said...

Oh gods... I absolutely DIED while watching this movie. They had such a lovely concept to play with, a GREAT premise and I think if they'd given a posse of authors a chance to brainstorm the plot, things would have have been hundreds better than the insipid whimper this film ended up with.

Highlander (the one with Christopher Lambert as Connor McLeod) is one of my all-time favourite films but the rest just hurt to sit through.

Much like The Crow, they should have left it at that or at least gotten a real fiction author to come up with "fanfic" set in the same world instead of rehashing derivative material.

Sorry... this is something I'm quite passionate about...