Highlander: The Gathering

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.