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#655 - Highlander: The Source
Brett Leonard, 2007
An immortal swordsman is reluctantly brought into the fray when an ancient prophecy threatens to come true.
"There can be only one" are the arc words that serve as both catch-phrase and plot summary for the cult '80s fantasy film Highlander, yet they also prove telling when taking into account the many attempts to expand upon the film's understandably limited mythology. Initial sequel Highlander 2: The Quickening took the franchise into infamously absurd sci-fi territory; it was reviled so much that third film Highlander: The Final Dimension disregarded its events entirely and ended up being little more than an empty rehash of the original film. Most surprisingly, the film spawned a spin-off television series about Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul), an immortal relative of original film protagonist Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert). After running for several seasons, the show got its own movie with Highlander: Endgame, which saw both MacLeods team up to face a powerful enemy. Though its television-level production values ultimately prevented it from being a good film in its own right, it is arguably the least objectionable of any of the Highlander sequels.
Highlander: The Source, on the other hand, is probably the most objectionable of all the sequels. It is the first film to not feature Connor in some manner - instead, it focuses on Duncan as he reunites with a few other immortal friends in order to search for the titular "Source", a magic MacGuffin that is guarded by the imaginatively-monikered "Guardian". Said Guardian is an immortal who has been cursed to protect the Source but in being cursed is probably the most dangerous immortal yet, so of course Duncan and his comrades must try to figure out how to deal with him. There's also something to do with the planets aligning and also another lost love of Duncan's, but really, the MacGuffin plot is all you need. Unfortunately, even a plot as simple as that one gets muddled under all the characters that are jam-packed into this incredibly short film before being summarily murdered in vicious and apparently dramatic ways. While I remember Endgame being easy enough to follow without needing to be familiar with the Highlander TV series, I feel like The Source is perhaps a bit too dependent on such a familiarity. I guess that has something to do with the expectation that if you're actually willing to watch this then you have to be enough of a Highlander fanatic to have actually seen the show and already met the characters. That's still not much of an excuse, though.
Other Highlander films have been taken to task for their perceived ineptitude in regards to every facet of filmmaking, but The Source truly is on another level when it comes to being bad. I may have talked up the hidden potential in straight-to-video action films when I reviewed the Universal Soldier sequels, and to be fair, at least Highlander: The Source has a rather striking visual palette that stands out despite the film's meagre production values. However, soaking entire scenes in the same shade of red or blue can also prove an obfuscating eyesore, and that's without getting into the ramshackle effects work that tries to bring the immortals' various powers to life. Digital blur is everywhere as the characters move and fight at various speeds, while the camerawork and editing tend to be of very poor quality as well. This is a shame because it obscures the fights, which is the main thing that the movie had going for it. What else is there? The answer is the needlessly convoluted plot about an ancient prophecy featuring a bunch of flat and badly-acted characters; the only memorable one is the Guardian himself, and that's because Highlander villains need to be able to chew the scenery with gusto whether it works or not.
On its own terms, Highlander: The Source is an aggressively awful excuse for fantasy action that references its existing mythology in the most obnoxious ways possible; as if having a terrible metal cover of Queen's "Princes of the Universe" playing on the soundtrack wasn't insulting enough, there's also a scene where the Guardian taunts a prospective victim by hoarsely singing the chorus of "Who Wants To Live Forever?". The rare instance of visual flair is crushed under the weight of shoddy effects and poor action sequences while the bland storyline is not aided in any way by these very unremarkable players. The ultimate testament to the inherent badness of The Source is that, as of writing, it has more or less managed to kill the supposedly unkillable Highlander franchise once and for all. The franchise has weathered some notoriously terrible installments, yet this one managed to outdo them and make it so that the next actual film is liable to be a straight-up reboot. There have been a few Highlander sequels and they've all been awful in their own ways, but if you had to decide which one was the worst, well, it can be only this one.
Brett Leonard, 2007
An immortal swordsman is reluctantly brought into the fray when an ancient prophecy threatens to come true.
"There can be only one" are the arc words that serve as both catch-phrase and plot summary for the cult '80s fantasy film Highlander, yet they also prove telling when taking into account the many attempts to expand upon the film's understandably limited mythology. Initial sequel Highlander 2: The Quickening took the franchise into infamously absurd sci-fi territory; it was reviled so much that third film Highlander: The Final Dimension disregarded its events entirely and ended up being little more than an empty rehash of the original film. Most surprisingly, the film spawned a spin-off television series about Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul), an immortal relative of original film protagonist Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert). After running for several seasons, the show got its own movie with Highlander: Endgame, which saw both MacLeods team up to face a powerful enemy. Though its television-level production values ultimately prevented it from being a good film in its own right, it is arguably the least objectionable of any of the Highlander sequels.
Highlander: The Source, on the other hand, is probably the most objectionable of all the sequels. It is the first film to not feature Connor in some manner - instead, it focuses on Duncan as he reunites with a few other immortal friends in order to search for the titular "Source", a magic MacGuffin that is guarded by the imaginatively-monikered "Guardian". Said Guardian is an immortal who has been cursed to protect the Source but in being cursed is probably the most dangerous immortal yet, so of course Duncan and his comrades must try to figure out how to deal with him. There's also something to do with the planets aligning and also another lost love of Duncan's, but really, the MacGuffin plot is all you need. Unfortunately, even a plot as simple as that one gets muddled under all the characters that are jam-packed into this incredibly short film before being summarily murdered in vicious and apparently dramatic ways. While I remember Endgame being easy enough to follow without needing to be familiar with the Highlander TV series, I feel like The Source is perhaps a bit too dependent on such a familiarity. I guess that has something to do with the expectation that if you're actually willing to watch this then you have to be enough of a Highlander fanatic to have actually seen the show and already met the characters. That's still not much of an excuse, though.
Other Highlander films have been taken to task for their perceived ineptitude in regards to every facet of filmmaking, but The Source truly is on another level when it comes to being bad. I may have talked up the hidden potential in straight-to-video action films when I reviewed the Universal Soldier sequels, and to be fair, at least Highlander: The Source has a rather striking visual palette that stands out despite the film's meagre production values. However, soaking entire scenes in the same shade of red or blue can also prove an obfuscating eyesore, and that's without getting into the ramshackle effects work that tries to bring the immortals' various powers to life. Digital blur is everywhere as the characters move and fight at various speeds, while the camerawork and editing tend to be of very poor quality as well. This is a shame because it obscures the fights, which is the main thing that the movie had going for it. What else is there? The answer is the needlessly convoluted plot about an ancient prophecy featuring a bunch of flat and badly-acted characters; the only memorable one is the Guardian himself, and that's because Highlander villains need to be able to chew the scenery with gusto whether it works or not.
On its own terms, Highlander: The Source is an aggressively awful excuse for fantasy action that references its existing mythology in the most obnoxious ways possible; as if having a terrible metal cover of Queen's "Princes of the Universe" playing on the soundtrack wasn't insulting enough, there's also a scene where the Guardian taunts a prospective victim by hoarsely singing the chorus of "Who Wants To Live Forever?". The rare instance of visual flair is crushed under the weight of shoddy effects and poor action sequences while the bland storyline is not aided in any way by these very unremarkable players. The ultimate testament to the inherent badness of The Source is that, as of writing, it has more or less managed to kill the supposedly unkillable Highlander franchise once and for all. The franchise has weathered some notoriously terrible installments, yet this one managed to outdo them and make it so that the next actual film is liable to be a straight-up reboot. There have been a few Highlander sequels and they've all been awful in their own ways, but if you had to decide which one was the worst, well, it can be only this one.