Highlander: Endgame is the fourth Highlander film in the series and also serves as a continuation of the Highlander television series that concluded its run after six seasons. The film sees the film series’ Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) and the television show’s Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul) teaming up to face off against a dangerous new Immortal enemy in Jacob Kell (Bruce Payne) in what the trailers showed to be a completely different film from what ultimately hit theatres… and then would take yet another different form when Endgame eventually hit home video.
Endgame is an interesting beast of sorts. You show trailers for a film featuring a villain capable of splitting in half and performance cheap-end special effects of sorts… none of that stuff made it to the “final” cut that hit theaters. And apparently, the film was poorly received to such a degree that they did a new edit for home video. The DVD version, which is what I’ve watched, even includes an earlier cut to see how things went from there to here. Clearly, the people behind the film wanted to make a version that would appease most people, if not the most ardent of Highlander fans.
The thing is that Endgame ALMOST works… and to be fair, there are some bits that I like about the film. Once again, the fight scenes are top-notch; probably some of the best seen on film and it also helps that Adrian Paul holds his own quite nicely – six years of swordfighting on television will do that to you. The flashback sequences highlighting the relationship between the MacLeod clansmen are refreshing pieces compared to the present day’s modern drab circumstances, which makes the duo’s final confrontation all the more depressing.
Endgame was meant to be the swan song for Christopher Lambert’s Connor MacLeod as he passes the cinematic katana (so to speak) to his television counterpart. And it’s a bit of a sad end – seeing his adopted daughter die in a bomb explosion (nice that they brought back the actress from the first film to reprise her role here for the explicit purpose of getting killed off – good job, guys!) and resigning himself in a metal box for years… so clearly there’s no Mario Van Peebles or General Katana in this guy’s future anytime soon… only to be forced out as the only survivor of said sanctuary… and honestly, when the end does come – I won’t say how but it’s not hard to figure out – the whole thing comes across as depressing. Whether that fits the character as a whole is a debate for another time, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Other than that, the overall plot leaves much to be desired. There’s Duncan’s fawning over an immortal ex-wife, the villain’s (Kell) continued pursuit and psychological torture of the elder MacLeod over… something or other, the limited use of Duncan’s allies Methos and Joe Lawson (who, amazingly enough, do NOT get killed off – that’s progress, I suppose), and… man, I don’t know. There are ideas here and there that I can see almost working, but for some reason, it doesn’t click and makes me wonder if they really needed to make this movie in the first place. The dialogue here is pretty bad and not necessarily in a cheese sort of way. This is the sort of dialogue that feels like it was written by crack writers of a wrestling show who have no clue how to write dialogue.
Speaking of which, Endgame features a bit role played by WWE Superstar and multi-time champion Edge (or as those behind the scenes call him, THE EDGE – which is honestly a better name for him anyway). He’s fine in it and not quite in as big a role as some adverts would have you believe.
Highlander: Endgame is a sad, sad movie no matter how hard they try to revamp it. It is a sad end to the story of Connor MacLeod, it is a drab continuation of the Highlander television series and a generally poor passing of the torch story in terms of handing the movie reigns over to Duncan, and… honestly, it’s another example of how there probably should have been only one.
If there is only one positive that could be levied out of this, however, it’s that I like Adrian Paul’s Duncan enough to give the TV show a shot one of these days. And that would probably all the Highlander fix I’d need going forward because I shudder to think how bad the next film would be.
dtm666 