Highlander: The Gathering

03.09.07 (4:42 pm)   [edit]
Is this a shitty compilation movie or a TV movie? Or a pilot? No idea, but anyway, it seems to be the first episode of the Highlander TV series (starring Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod, the titular Highlander) and another episode edited together. Look, I really enjoy the first Highlander movie. It's got a creative plot, the flashback/modern day screenplay structure is cute, the visuals are beautiful (lush nature contrasting with a rainsoaked, always nighttime Blade Runner-esque city) and Sean Connery (Ramirez) and Christopher Lambert (Conor MacLeod) are enthusiastic about the material and enjoying themselves.

Unfortunately, this a review of Highlander: The Gathering and not Highlander. Like the other Highlander sequels, this is a bit of a mess. First off, why the fuck is Christopher Lambert the only one on the cover when he's only in about 1/4 of it? He's clearly the guest star for one TV episode. I guess they were trying to pass this off as a sequel movie. It always pissed me off that the sequels to Highlander try to ignore that the game is over at the end of the first Highlander movie and there's no story left to tell. The TV series (and consequently this TV compilation movie) gets around this by apparently not having continuity with the movie, which is okay with me. It's a better solution than the dumb ideas in Highlander II: The Quickening (oh, the immortals are actually space aliens), or Highlander III: The Final Dimension (oh, there was an immortal buried in a cave in Japan all this time, so he couldn't participate in the game anymore), so whatever.

While I remember enjoying the TV well enough back in the 90's, this is really pretty dire. The teenage boy sidekick played by Stan Kirsch instantly annoys me tremendously with his "look I'm a criminal, I'm a rebel, I'm a biker, actually I'm just a boring family friendly sidekick", rather like Chris O'Donnel's Robin in the horrible Batman sequels. Even though love interest Tessa (played by Alexandra Vandernoot) is pretty attractive and naked and/or having sex with Duncan a surprising amount (considering this was made for TV), the fact is that she's obviously from some European country and every word that comes out of her mouth is horribly garbled by her Jean Claude Van Damme-esque accent. Also she has the emotional range of a sock. Like any good useless female love interest character, she manages to get kidnapped immediately.

Hilariously, the villain of the piece (okay, of the first episode) is Bull from Night Court (Richard Moll) with hair and a beard and a Hannibal Lecter mask. The best part is how inept his sword duels with Lambert and Paul are. Seriously, I've seen better swordfights in high school Shakespeare productions. The totally inept editing and lifeless camerawork do little to hide this. Add to this boring Canadian location shooting, hammy acting, and really poor, unconvincing special effects and you have a recipe for laughter. Maybe I'm being a bit hard on a low budget 90's TV show, but if it's pretending to be a movie, I'm going to treat it like one! The second half was way less interesting, but the nominal villain is played by Vanity, a singer/actress of questionable talent that Prince mentored. No, I never heard of her either, but she wears skintight work out clothes for most of her screentime, if that helps you.

Really, this isn't trying very hard and I'm pretty sure the show got better later on, the sex and violence from the movies is sanitized (well, it's TV, right?) and everything else is a step down, but at least its heart is in the right place and it doesn't barf all over the original movie the way Highlander II does. Recommended largely for nostalgics and people who want something to laugh at.

P.S. So Conor MacLeod, the Scotsman is played by a Frenchman, Ramirez, the Egyptian or whatever is played by an actual Scotsman, and then Duncan MacLeod, the Scotsman is played by an Englishman with Italian blood. Nice.

Quick Reviews

03.09.07 (4:25 pm)   [edit]
I've seen way too many movies lately to give each on a full review, so I'm just going to do little capsule reviews:

Children of Men: A great little post-apocalyptic movie. Central premise is that the entire human race has become sterile and there have been no children born in 20 years. The world has mostly descended into chaos, with a fascistic Britain one of the only hold-outs. And then a woman becomes pregnant and everyone is fighting over her and her baby. This is the only bleak post-apocalyptic movie that left me feeling kind of happy and hopeful at the end instead of emotionally drained. Good visual style that recalls the 1984 film, a bit of shakycam that didn't irritate me too much. Good acting all around, especially from Clive Owen and Michael Caine. Characters have okay depth (I really like the history between Caine and Owen's characters), dialogue is pretty good, and people react realistically to the depressing, horrible things happening to them. The script surprised me several times, and watching a brutal army that was just moments ago murdering helpless civilians stop and basically fall on their knees and worship a newborn baby is an image that will stick with me, especially when their enemy attacked them while they were thus distracted. Nice, slightly ambiguous, but hopeful ending caps it off. I am pissed this won exactly no Oscars, but Scorsese's remake of a Hong Kong cop movie took top honors.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: I loved this film when I was a kid, and rewitched for the first time since I was probably 13. It's still great, probably the best Frankenstein film. Yes, that includes, James Whale's 1931 classic. Unlike Whale's and just about every other version (including the many Hammer films), director/star Kenneth Branagh's version is actually pretty close to the novel. Granted, it makes some deviations (especially with the film's climax), but it captures the book's spirit better than any film before or since. Frankenstein's monster is not a stupid, lumbering beast that kills because it is barely aware. Robert De Niro's creature is scarred and hideously ugly, but a kind hearted intellectual abandoned by his "father" and then tormented and tortured by nearly everyone he meets, even if he helps them. You really feel sympathy for him, but you also feel sympathy for the obsessed Victor Frankenstein and his lively fiancée Elizabeth (played with zeal by Helena Bonham Carter). The acting is great and only a little over the top, as is required by Frankenstein. Come on, would you want to see Frankenstein trying to bring his creation to life without yelling, "LIVE! LIVEEEEEE!", looking all wild-eyed and crazy? I wouldn't. The visual are fantastic with some really impressive sets and outdoor scenes. Every location has a great sense of mood and character, and the ignorant peasants, outbreaks of disease, and convincing science ground the film in history and reality a way that random Jacob's Ladders and the stagey castle set of the Whale version never did. I also really appreciate the twists near the end where their maid Justine is lynched and when (sorry if I am ruining this, but the movie is over ten years old) the creature rips out Elizabeth's heart, Victor reanimates her, and then she sets burns herself to death in horror. Seriously, this is classic horror. Very fine work all around, and my only real complaint is that they wimped out and didn't show the creature kill Victor's little brother. I realize it's kind of a Hollywood taboo, but I've never seen a monster rip out the lively female love interest's heart either. Good job, Kenneth Branagh. Make some more monster movies. This is way better than contemporary monster films, like the painful, plotless CG orgy that is Van Helsing. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has style and substance to spare.

NOTE: I am still writing this. Stay calm, there's more on the way!