yendi | That could just be orbital wobble

Wow.

Highlander the Source?

Worse than expected.

Wow.

If a million monkeys smoked a million vials of crack, then flung a million handfuls of poo at a million typewriters, they couldn't write something this nonsensical.

And that's before the "acting." Of the three series regulars, Wingfield and Paul basically phone it in (you have to suspect that they're fulfilling the back-end of the contracts they signed for Highlander: Endgame), and Byrnes overacts so much in his few scenes, you'd think he was getting paid a bonus for each emotion expressed.

As far as the newcomers go, they have the collective acting talent of a porn movie cast, with the collective sex appeal of Mickey Rooney/Abe Vigoda slashfic.

And hey, it was directed by Brett Leonard. You might know him from such films as Man-Thing and Siegfried and Roy: The Magic Box.

The writers, Stephen Kelvin Watkins and Mark Bradley, have never written anything before, according to the IMDB, and aren't likely to get another chance. In fact, they completely miss the one thing that has always worked for even lesser Highlander shows and movies -- the flashbacks. Then again, they also drop the ball when it comes to dialogue, plot, and character development.

Just for kicks, throw in awful, awful fight choreography (all fights in fast motion!), random swipes from Road Warrior, Resident Evil, and Mortal Kombat, and a "Princes of the Universe" cover (over the midpoint montage) that appears to be performed by a group of drunken half-orc hobos watching the lyrics on a blurry karaoke machine (although the credits reveal that it's actually performed by former Uriah Heep frontman John Sloman, which amounts to the same thing).

The concept here is that, in the not-too-distant-future, the world sucks, especially the parts of Eastern Europe where the movie was filmed. Duncan is all Emo because he can't have kids; some other immortals are searching for a brand new myth they've known about since the dawn of time called The Source, and Duncan's latest human ex has weird visions as she mopes around Europe. Oh, and there's a superfast immortal running around. New characters include Roman Catholic Cardinal Immortal*; Questing Arabic Guy Who's Supposed to Make You Think of Naveen Andrews Immortal; Annoying Punk NASA Scientist Immortal; and Imprisoned in a Tower and Forced to Sound Like Jabba the Hutt Immortal. Or, as I like to think of them collectively, Red Shirt Immortals.

The entire film ends with a showdown at the Eastern European Burning Man Festival that somehow segues into a fight at the Fortress of Solitude. Which is just how I expected the book to close on the Highlander Universe.

Fortunately, after it ends, the director chooses to rerun the entire film, so you can just fast forward to the final two minutes and get the entire movie recapped in fast motion. And the movie ends with a gratuitous Fetus-Cam shot, as The Source finally grants Immortals working sperm (

shadesong: "It's a movie entirely about Adrian Paul's semen.").

Oh, did I mention that the villain in the movie is basically the lovechild of the Kurgan and Soul Calibur's Voldo?

And let's not forget the whopping $18 spent on the f/x.

shadesong: They used the entire budget on the color filters.

Me: Those aren't color filters. They're using really old cameras.

In actuality, the entire budget was spent on the scene early on in which the villain, while walking down a hallway, causes each overhead light to explode as he walks by, as villains always do.

If you're thinking about watching this, don't bother.

*Roman Catholic Cardinal Immortal's Hair is, as far as I can tell, an entirely separate character, with a backstory that one assumes encompasses A Flock of Seagulls and James Marsters on Buffy.

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chris-walsh.livejournal.com

Kick. Ass. (The review, obviously, NOT the movie.)

This shall be shared. Its awesome awesomeness must be shared!

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