dibot Blog

Under discussion:

Highlander: Endgame  (2000)

I found this old review from when I used to work at a newspaper. Dated 9/7/2000

There Can Be Only One

Unless it's a movie, and then there can be as many as you can imagine.
The fourth Highlander movie, "Highlander: Endgame," represents the changing of the guard for this series. It combines the original movie character, Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) with the television show character Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul).

For those who know nothing about Highlander (shame on you all) here's a bit of back fill. Some people living among us humans are immortal. Once they are killed in their regular lives, they revive and begin their lives as immortals, never aging and never dying. The only way an immortal can be killed is if someone cuts off his or her head. If one immortal kills another, then he/she gets the dead immortal's power in a surge of lightening called the Quickening, which usually destroys large buildings and blows up nearby cars or trees.

So the immortals are all fighting each other in this big game, usually good verses evil, to be the last one left alive. Hence, there can be only one.
There's also a big set of rules that goes along with being an immortal, like you can't fight on holy ground, only one immortal can challenge another immortal and so on.

In this film, one of the evil immortals, Kell (Bruce Payne), gets a group together and they jointly attack other immortals. (Evil guys are always breaking the rules.) And he has a personal grudge against Connor from like 600 years ago and since that time, he has been tracking Connor and making his life a living hell by killing off all the people he loves. Thus, Duncan becomes a target.

For those who are confused, Connor and Duncan are from the same clan, so they're both Highlanders, but Connor's several hundred years older. He found Duncan when Duncan first became an immortal and trained him and taught him all the rules.

Watching this movie was like watching a really long episode of the show, which is cool if you like the show. If you don't, you probably won't like the movie.

I, however, enjoyed it immensely. Except for the excess flashbacks. I know the director was just trying to tell the story in an interesting way, but I would have liked fewer flashbacks.

There was one weak spot in the plot, but not too bad. Otherwise, I give it two thumbs up for being a really long episode. Think "The X-Files" movie.

Spoiler Alert: It's a little bit sad. Something had to be done to keep the movies going, and since Lambert is starting to show his age, it's hard to believe that he's immortal. I don't want to spoil it, but think "Star Trek Generations" where they bring the new crew in to join the old crew.

You can't have two captains.

I can't believe that they let me do this. And paid me. I think I got better at writing reviews as time went on. I'll have to wait until I come across some more.

Under discussion:

The Lady Vanishes  (1938)

Marnie  (1964)

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers  (1946)

Margot at the Wedding  (2007)

Wicked Little Things  (2006)

I'm so far behind that these are going to be super short (even for me). Maybe I can catch up.

The Lady Vanishes, an Alfred Hitchcock ("Family Plot") movie mostly set in the confines of a train, is a mystery where one woman notices another has gone missing, but no one believes her. Of course. Good. Of course. But not Hitch's best.

I liked Marnie, another Hitchcock film, better. Tippi Hedren ("Dead White") stars as a con girl who falls for her mark, Sean Connery ("The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"). But then he turns the tables on her. There's also fits of hysterics, horses, crazy mothers, color flashbacks and birds. Different than the average Hitchcock, still very suspenseful and good.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers was definitely strange. A young girl kills her overbearing aunt, but a friend witnesses the event and things change forever. Most of the story occurs when the participants are grown-up and full of bitter mind games. This is classified as a film noir, so it has much of the darkness, femme fatale and brooding anti-hero typical to that genre.

Margot at the Wedding is quite possible the worst movie I have ever seen. Wow. Horrible people saying ridiculous, hateful things to each other and behaving as humans never should. Jack Black ("Be Kind Rewind") is the best thing about this movie. Sad, but true.

Anther After Dark film, Wicked Little Things is definitely not the best, but there are some very creepy moments. A bunch of kids were buried alive in an old mine and have since been terrorizing the families in the area. When some new people move into an old house, they begin piecing together the mystery and things come to a head. Look for creepy old houses, zombie children and some annoying teenagers getting eaten alive.