The Bait-and-Switch Movie Trailer (I’ll explain this a little later.)
Released: September 2000
Director: Douglas Aarniokoski
Run Time: 101 Minutes(Producer’s/Director’s Cut: The 2-Disc DVD Ultimate Collection)
Rated R
Cast:
Adrian Paul: Duncan MacLeod
Christopher Lambert: Connor MacLeod
Bruce Payne: Jacob Kell
Peter Wingfield: Methos
Jim Byrnes: Joe Dawson
Donnie Yen: Jin Ke
Lisa Barbuscia: Kate/Faith
When the original Highlander film came out in 1986, it was considered to be a massive box-office bomb in the United States. Yet, it did pretty well overseas, particularly in France and England. So, why wasn’t the film initially successful HERE? I guess people really weren’t itching to see 400 year old Immortals fighting each other on the streets of New York City. Also Christopher Lambert wasn’t exactly a box-office draw. His only other big movie was Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. People weren’t expecting a film that had flashbacks to different periods in history including 16th century Scotland. Highlander was a very original and smart adventure film. Nobody had seen anything like it before. While the film didn’t get the box office numbers it deserved, Highlander wound up actually getting the recognition it deserved on home video. It became a cult classic that is basically revered by millions of fans around the world today. I guess that was enough for the people behind the film to start making sequels. I have a question. When you have a movie featuring Immortals whose only goal is to become the only one left standing, wouldn’t it make sense to just leave it there? Connor MacLeod was the only immortal left after killing the Kurgan, so that should have been the end of it. Nope. The producers went ahead a second film in which Immortals came from another planet: Zeist. Yep, the Immortals were ALIENS!! Now, subsequent home video releases of Highlander 2 would actually drop that particular issue, but the damage had already been done. The movie was hammered on release. That should have been a clue that maybe a sequel was a bad idea. But wait, there’s more: Shortly after the second film was released, there was a TV series starring Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod that started airing. Truth be told, the series wasn’t actually half-bad with the pilot episode featuring Christopher Lambert. That’s a hell of a way to start a series. Seeing as how popular the series had become, the producers at Dimension, having aquired the rights to the Highlander film franchise, began work on a third film. This was the first film in the series to feature a PG-13 rating, and it got slammed. The home video release would end up being rated R, featuring more violence and other adult situations. A fourth film, Highlander Endgame, was supposed to bridge the TV series and the film franchise when the series ended in 1998.
Opening in 1986 New York, we see Connor MacLeod’s adopted daughter, Rachel get blown to smithereens in Connor’s loft. 10 years later, we see Connor hooked up to IVs keeping him sedated apparently. It wasn’t enough to keep him from narrating parts of his life, though. Flashback to Glen Finnen in Scotland, Connor’s hometown, he decides to save his mother from the very people who drove him away. Sadly, she ends up getting burned at the stake and Connor kills a holy man in cold blood. Said holy man is the adopted father of one Jacob Kell who also gets stabbed by Connor. Jumping back to present day….wherever, we see Jacob Kell invading The Sanctuary, a place where Immortals place themselves to prevent violence to others. That doesn’t stop Kell and his marauding gang of Immortals from decapitating the helpless Immortals. Said sanctuary was supposed to be on holy ground. Kell clearly doesn’t care about The Rules. We then cut to Paris, France where Duncan MacLeod is meditating when he gets visions of the massacre. After visiting Methos, we head to New York and the loft that was blown up. After a flashback(yes, those do happen frequently), Duncan encounters his old flame, Faith/Kate or whatever name she’s going by now. Okay, the tag line of the franchise is “There can be only one.” So, why the hell are there 5 movies and several TV shows?! The line doesn’t say there can be only one or two, just ONE! Not two or three or four, but ONE. Story-wise, Endgame isn’t too bad, it features certain themes including revenge and redemption that I quite like. It’s just done in such a ham-fisted way that we can’t actually care about most of these people.
Let’s look at the positives here. One: the music is actually fairly well done and not entirely out of place. It’s got some fairly dark and oppressive themes, especially when Kell shows up. It’s pretty good stuff. Secondly, the fight scenes are awesome. With choreography by legendary martial arts actor, Donnie Yen, we have some really cool sword-fights and Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting. Yes, I referenced Carl Douglas’s song, I’m allowed to do that. Seriously, though, the sword-fights are some of the best I’ve seen in a movie like this. This is also Donnie Yen’s first American film. That’s another plus. Next, Adrian Paul. Of all the actors in this movie, Adrian Paul is the only one who seems to be carrying his weight. Finally, the movie moves at a pretty brisk pace. So, it’s not boring. Some of the camera shots are fantastic, especially when they’re in Scotland. Scotland’s got some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever seen. So what’s wrong with this movie?
The answer is everything else. The acting in particular is dreadful. Anyone who isn’t Adrian Paul is basically phoning it in. It certainly doesn’t help that most of the characters aren’t particularly likable. That’s one of the biggest issues facing this film: The writing. Connor spends most of the film moping around feeling sorry for himself. Kate spends it pouting and looking pretty while trying to unsuccessfully hate Duncan. If the villain had a mustache, it would be twirled into oblivion. Jacob Kell is one of the LEAST threatening villains in the franchise. It certainly doesn’t help that he’s surrounded himself by incompetent Immortals who easily outnumber him and could have taken his head. So why doesn’t that happen? Who knows? Bruce Payne spends the movie just snarling and sneering and generally being awful as the bad guy. I don’t hate Bruce Payne, but Kell is his worst character to date. It’s also clear that during a fight scene with Duncan, there are bits and pieces where you see that it isn’t Christopher Lambert doing the fighting. A lot of the visual effects are very under-cooked. In fact, during that fight scene between Connor and Duncan, there’s a JVC sign in the background that’s been blurred out. Poorly, I might add. Highlander Endgame feels like it’s been edited by a five year-old kid. It is painfully obvious where they cut the negative during certain scenes. If you look closely during the training session between Connor and Duncan, there’s a point during the super-move that Connor teaches Duncan, where he says that this move is unstoppable. In other versions of the film, he says that the move is NEARLY unstoppable. There are also sequences during the final battle where they clearly cut and paste certain parts of the fight. It is perfectly clear that whoever was editing the film, had no clue what he or she was doing. It’s pretty bad.
The marketing for this film was a disaster. The initial trailer for the film was clearly bait-and-switch. Don’t believe me? Check out the trailer above. It features elements and visual effects that aren’t in any version of the movie, leading me to believe that those particular shots were created specifically for the trailer. If you have to dress your trailer up using stuff that’s not actually in the movie to sell the movie, that’s called false advertising. The trailer depicted Kell as some supernatural force using god-like powers, like stopping a sword using a force field. It also featured a portal which Connor and Duncan jumped through. You’ve got to watch it. It’s unbelievable. I’ve seen some bad movie trailers, but this one nearly takes the cake. If you have to create effects just for a trailer to advertise your movie, there is something seriously wrong with your movie. The movie we got was not the one that was advertised. Granted, later trailers would eliminate those effects, but the damage has been done. You see one thing and get something else. I would like to expect a LITTLE bit of honesty when it comes to movie trailers. The fact that I heard about 4 different versions of Highlander Endgame existing, doesn’t really bode well for the filmmakers. It wound up being bad enough, that the 5th film ended up going straight to the sci-fi channel. That’s pretty much a death sentence for most franchises that aren’t Sharknado.
There’s enough here for me to like about the movie to keep me from tossing it in the Bad Movie category with The Source. Highlander Endgame is the last theatrically-released Highlander film. I’ve been reading around the Internet that they are re-making the original film, which is a bad idea, I think. Depending on who’s making it and who’s going to be in it, I’ll wait and see, but I’m not expecting anything good. At the end of the day, Highlander Endgame gets a 6.5/10. It’s entertaining enough, but it’s poorly put together.