Just stop making Highlander movies....Please!

Many, many years ago, when I was still in college, I was introduced to the movie "Highlander."  I look back on the film fondly for many reasons - some great visual work from director Russell Mulcahy, the presence of actress Beatie Edney  (who I have never seen anywhere other than in her two Highlander appearances, but I would like to!),  Sean Connery  (a man who raises any movie's rating by a couple stars just by showing up for work), and of course because of the wonderful soundtrack by my boys, Queen!

I enjoyed "Highlander" more so than most Americans - the film pretty much was DOA when it opened here in the states in 1986.  In other parts of the world though, it was quite popular, popular enough to warrant a string of sequels and a TV series.  As a result, the world has been made to suffer the existence of such mind-numbing silliness as "Highlander 2", "Highlander 3: the Final Dimension" and now the worst of all Highlander product, "Highlander: The Source."

 
"Highlander: The Source" was to be a wonderful first installment of a new trilogy of films intended to set the world on fire.  At one point, the production company actually claimed that New Line Films was looking to distribute the films and hoped that they would fill the void left by the completion of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" series.  Unfortunately, by the time it was finished, "The Source" was so bad that no company wanted to release it to theatres in the US, so it premiered as a SCI-FI channel "original" film.

Dear God this thing was terrible!  It takes place in the near future where society has turned quite horrible.  Cities are urban zoos where criminals run rampant and stuff is on fire for no real reason, islands are populated by cannibalistic motorcycle gangs, and of course, all the planets in the solar system are, for some strange reason, moving out of orbit in order to line up in a straight line out from the sun.   Only one scientist seems to be concerned (or even notice this) and as luck would have it, he is an Immortal.  He contacts the leader of the Immortals, Methos, to let him know about the planets and Methos, in his infinite wisdom, decides the best course of action is to let depressed swordsman Duncan McLeod know about this.

If you don't know who the Immortals are in "Highlander", here's a brief rundown.  The Immortals fight each other for the right to claim "the Prize".  They are Immortal until they are killed (yes, you read that right.  Don't complain to me - I didn't make it up.)  In the first movie, Connor McLeod became the last living Immortal and claimed the Prize.  After that there were four more movies where other Immortals happened to show up and it turned out that Connor didn't really ever win the Prize.  I think maybe one of the characters even says "You thought you won the Prize, but you didn't!"  Then in the fourth movie, Connor is killed before the end of the very contest he won in the first movie.  Now he will never get to win the Prize even though he had won it or at least deluded himself into thinking that he had.  Oh, at the end of the first movie, he hooked up with the lovely police scientist Brenda, but then in the second movie we learned that she died due to radiation poisoning when Earth's ozone was destroyed.  And then in the third movie we learned that she died in a car accident. 

I'm being serious.

Anyway, this is making me angry so I'm going to stop.  I was going to go on to explain what was so terrible about "Highlander: the Source" and why I was so disappointed by it, but I was stupid to ever assume that it was going to be good!  I should have learned from the past.  Me taking the time to make fun of it is like mental masturbation - it's boring and serves no real purpose.  I'm embarrassing myself by acting surprised that it sucked. 

Highlander has given us one truly fantastic thing though, and here it is.  One of the greatest songs ever written.  I've heard it 1,000 times and it can still occasionally give me chills.  Enjoy!