Review of Highlander: Endgame (2000) by Janson S — 17 Dec 2011

I love the original Highlander and everything it brought with it. None of the sequels have even come close to leaving me with what the first Highlander had. When I first saw this one, I wasn't very fond of it either.

The most recent watch did up my opinion on it and although it isn't saying much, I would consider this the best of the sequels thus far. That being said, it's still nothing to get your panties in a bunch over.

There's still the predictable plot,, the 'Hollywood' vibe it tried to evoke (fail), the never-ending flashbacks. What the hell was with those flashbacks, anyway? There were way too many and started getting on my nerves after a while.

Its attempt to connect with the original film directly was appreciated, but this one pulled a 'Halloween sequel' trick and attempted to ignore the instalments that came before it. Result; me being confused as to what happened and what didn't according to the movie's plot.

However, not all is lost. The ending action sequence was pretty damn good and the dialogue exchanges were bearable thanks to the good actors involved. Christopher Lambert is really more of the supporting character here but I appreciate how much darker he got for this.

Pretty interesting for Connor, he's come a long way. Adrian Paul is terrific in this. His scenes with Lambert are great and emotes very well. I enjoy Bruce Payne's work otherwise but here he went way over the top.

I know the storyline itself is a little bit but dude, calm the fuck down! His dialogue speeches sometimes made me snicker and that wasn't a good thing for me. Lisa Barbuscia does well and is one sexy beam.

Donnie Yen can kick some serious ass and that's all I pretty much knew about him. Doug Aarniokoski tries his best to make the flick interesting with aerials, quick cuts, slo-mo etc. but we know better; the script is just not interesting enough for this much effort.

Also, what was with speeding up the action scenes? It was annoying a unreasonable. All this bashing aside, I'm kinda fond for this one as an effective time-waster so I would recommend on a rotten Sunday.

Just don't involve yourself too much and try to ignore the fact that it ignores most of the previous efforts. Adrian Paul was a good idea to have take over the franchise and I may watch the next Highlander entry someday soon for his presence alone.

That is it.