Written by Tim
August 02, 2010
The thought of being immortal is intriguing, but having to defend my head at a moment's notice could add undo stress to my life.
For centuries, we've been told there can be only one.
The thought of being immortal is intriguing, but having to defend my head at a moment's notice could add undue stress to my life. As for the aspect of being able to swing a sword with great accuracy and speed, I might just have to re-evaluate my decision. Personally speaking, the original Highlander partly fueled my trip to Scotland a couple of years ago. There’s nothing like being in the Scottish Highlands and imagining yourself in the 1400s, defending your clan. Errr… what was I saying?
Endgame is, what seems to be, the last installment of Connor MacLeod’s (Christopher Lambert) saga to remain in the “game” and the incorporation of Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul), from the TV series. The two characters are intertwined in centuries of history that becomes the underlying story line. The movie starts out 10 years in the past when Connor is forced to watch the woman he loves get blown to bits by Kell (Bruce Payne), an immortal that has become too powerful for anyone to defeat alone. After this, Connor goes into hiding in what is called “The Sanctuary” and Duncan is consumed with finding him. In addition to looking for Connor, Duncan is somewhat reunited with his immortal wife, Kate (Lisa Barbuscia), who is now a member of Kell’s personal clan of bad immortals.
Eventually, after finding each other, Connor and Duncan face up to the fact that, in order to defeat Kell, one of them must surrender his powers to the other in order to make him strong enough to win the game. The watchers seem to have kept score on how many heads each immortal has taken, with a database on a laptop. With a score of Kell at over 650 heads taken and Connor at 200+ followed by Duncan, at 150+ heads, we see that the joining of the MacLeod clan is the strongest solution. The final showdown had some promise, but left me deflated and scoffing at the screen.
The movie takes a walk down the predictable and is mostly boring. The flashback sequences give away way too much of what could be and interesting plot line. Why did they have to continue with the series when the 2nd and 3rd sequels were SOOOOO bad? Bringing the 4th chapter to the big screen was probably the attempt to transition the TV series to theatres à la Star Trek and The X-Files, but I really don’t think it’s going to work.
Rent it, if you must, but expect nothing spectacular.
