Highlander: The Source.....A Review

Prologue:

The following was written directly after viewing a pre-release version of Highlander: The Source. From all indications, it comes from a Russian DVD release and prior to the actually theatrical and/or DVD release in the United States in September of 2007.

Before I begin, I want to pre-qualify myself for this review. I am not just a fan of the Highlander story line. It has actually been a very big part of life for the last 20 years. By that, I do not mean I am a fan of the WAY the Highlander story has always been told. The story itself, it's themes and implications are are what have stirred my imagination and passion for that time period.

The original Highlander was presented very simply, yet profoundly. The idea of living forever is ostensibly to be desired. Consider our culture of youth. We have an entire market, many markets in fact, devoted to longer life. We all desire immortality via drugs, exercise, or even spirituality. But what are the implications of such a wish? What is immortality except a longer period of loneliness than we would otherwise have?

The Highlander storyline touches this question deeply and has explored it through many methods and mediums during those decades since it first debuted. As such, I encountered a young and handsome Christopher Lambert playing Connor MacLeod in 1986 and saw his character, played by that same yet aged actor, die in 2000. In between, I grew to know and identify with Duncan MacLeod, played by Adrian Paul. I lived, as a teenager, the vicarious life of a man far older than me. The realizations this brought impacted me deeply and I carried a fascination with all things related to immortality and its inherit loneliness from that time forward.

As such, when it comes to the Highlander canon, I feel as uniquely qualified to judge the current movie as anyone could be. I know the stories. I was there and shed real tears when Tessa was killed. I watched Duncan evolve, as a character, from someone afraid of his destiny into someone consigned to it. Along the way, I grew up and found myself confronting life in a similar fashion. There is a shared despair among us who are called "gifted" from a young age. It is a sense of impending doom from expectations we never feel adequate to meet.

So, to the movie and warning. I will divulge plot points, references, and screen captures from this current release. If you do not wish for spoiled surprises, do not read further.



Overview:


Unlike some fans, I can appreciate the method in which the Highlander story has evolved. In 1986, the movie was stark and almost barbaric. The Connor MacLeod character had a forgotten tenderness about him, only redeemed in what we thought was the end of the story. The next movies took his story still further, but did little to actually give us emotional insight into the man being portrayed. The Series, however, allowed us a glimpse of a different character and one we could watch grow and change over time. Duncan MacLeod was someone very different from Connor. He was less primitive, deeper, even more spiritual in a strange sort of way. His character evolved even past the series and into his first movie, wherein Connor handed over the mantle of The Highlander in a climactic scene which still brings tears to my eyes.





Highlander: Endgame was filmed very differently from the Series, which was in itself filmed different from the previous movies. As such, Highlander: The Source takes it a step further.

In a word, this movie is frenetic. It was nearly half an hour into it before I could even get a decent grasp of what was going on. The first minutes are filled with narrative captions (ex. military beeping as text appears on the screen: "Duncan MacLeod-Eastern Europe-Sometime in the future) which is oddly never seen again in the film. Additionally, smash editing produces tiny montages of images meant to convey back story and possibly current events to the viewer. Whether it is Duncan's montages of memory regarding Anna, his wife, or Anna's memories of visions she has had in the past, I felt a little confused until things sorted themselves out better.





Character development is largely concentrated on a few of the newcomers. As such, new viewers of this Highlander story are at a disadvantage to veterans like me who know the backstory of Methos and Joe. And this character development is uneven among even those new characters. For example, Cardinal Giovanni (Thorn Fell) is a fairly shallow hypocritical Christian whereas we find out the ancient history of the Guardian (played BRILLIANTLY by Cristian Solimeno).




The Good:

The casting was good and especially superb on the part of the Guardian. Cristian Solimeno plays a Kurgan-esque character to the hilt and even parodies the classic Queen Highlander anthem "Who Wants to Live Forever" prior to killing Joe Dawson in front of Duncan. His bizarre quirks are indicative of extreme immortality and what kind of madness it can produce. A similar homage to the original movie is given by the Guardian's character when he kills off the first immortal of the movie. After beheading an archaeologist immortal, who has discovered many of the secrets of the Source, the Guardian utters a variation on the mantra of immortals with "There can be only me" and he receives his quickening against a backdrop of exploding pane glass windows.



Additionally, this movie does a decent job of tying up loose ends from previous installments with simple dialogue bits. For example, in Endgame Duncan was married to Kate, with whom he reconciled at the end. In The Source, we learn that Kate has died when Duncan lists those he has lost and mentions both Tessa and Kate. As Joe lies dying in Duncan's arms, Duncan remarks that Joe is the father who never kicked him out. Fans of the series get this while newcomers are left scratching their heads.



Overall, this is Highlander evolved. It is current and trendy, with the requisite amount of grittiness we expect from modern films. In that respect, it pays the most tribute to the 1986 classic. Adrian Paul even sports a 7 o'clock shadow throughout the movie, reminiscent of Connor's trenchcoat-clad looks.


The Bad:

To those of us who know can recognize it, The Source was filmed on a very small budget. So little, in fact, they had to re-use actors to fill different parts, even those who had obviously been killed earlier.*

The locations are drab, dreary, and often repetitive. It's obvious they did the best they could in their Romanian shooting locale, but it doesn't have the sweeping contrasts between old Scotland and modern New York, as Endgame and the original movie did. It's simply ruined city, followed by ruined countryside, followed by fantasy scenes of the Source itself.

Another lost trait of earlier Highlander stories is the fighting itself. There is only a single Quickening depicted in the entire movie. Two more immortals are killed, but in unspectacular ways and no consequences or aftermath shown. Duncan is involved in a few "street fights" and two battles with the Guardian, the last of which crosses the line of reality into strangely edited, rapid-motion choreography and psychedelics.




Where backstory is concerned, there are continual hints of a bitterness between Methos and Duncan which is never explained. We only know they are basically mad at each other, for some reason, and that Methos finally declares Duncan is "the One" before riding off to an uncertain fate at the hands of an angry mob.




The Conclusion:

According to the official website for the movie, Peter Davis has this to say:

Any version of Highlander: The Source that is currently available is not the final producers' version of the film. Peter Davis and Bill Panzer of Davis/Panzer Productions, the producers, in conjunction with Lionsgate Entertainment, are presently editing and remixing the film. This final cut will be delivered to Lionsgate on or about March 15, 2007.

Lionsgate will be releasing the film in September, 2007.

I don't know why the release I saw exists or why it has been legitimately released. I do look forward to the official release of the film, whether it is in theaters or direct to DVD. Hopefully, some post-production editing will clear many of the problems I have with this version and answer a few questions. Additionally, my impression from both this pre-release (suspicious, if you ask me) and long lead time before the US debut is that a new series is being prepped. Early script leaks had the child Duncan and Anna were talking about at the end of this film shown as a growing boy, immortal, and the son of very mortal Duncan and Anna, in a kind of cyclic immortality universe. It remains to be seen how the writers and producers will add to the official canon of Highlander in their future releases.

My bottom line is that I largely liked the movie and even admired the way they tried to close so many gaps haunting the Highlander storyline for so many years. Again, I saw a pre-releas version and the final product may be entirely different. I shall post again on this subject when it is made known.





* This is actually not true, from me perspective. When I went back to get a screep cap of the actor I thought had been killed and later recycled into another bad guy, I saw via slow motion that he wasn't killed, just wounded.