I just looked back at my notes on Highland: Endgame, still the only other Highlander movie I've yet to see (also never seen an episode of the show), and an a little surprised at how high it was rated then even at a C+ grade. I must have reacted to the final battle scene between Adrian Paul and Christopher Lambert, which is the only thing I can even recall from the one time seeing the film, and finding it kind of cool in a cheesy, disposable science-fiction flick manner. But the fact that it is so forgettable shouldn't be taken for granted, at the very least in what has come AFTER THE ENDGAME! According to a friend each Highlander film gets even more disconnected and continuity confused than the last, and The Source is probably one of those textbook examples of a story being simply way too confusing for one who isn't at least a little familiar with the franchise. And at the same time, seeing it tonight on the Sci-fi cable channel, it's not totally out of place, and maybe not quite as offensive as some of the product made right in their home premises. But it's still a waste of any viewer's time, even for die-hard fans.
The only real value at all to be taken from the movie, and there is maybe a little bit, may be in aspects, *in parts*, of craftsmanship, like the make-up on Pyramidhead and the cinematography, the latter calling into mind (oddly enough as I'm not kidding) Pan's Labyrinth, of course without much at all of the power of the context that film had in style and substance. But once that is past, then one is left with direction that seems to come out of a school that is based entirely on a time when MTV still made music videos, with touches of would-be 300 knock-off thrown in either as unintentional or as sucker-punching for genre fans. And acting that is just fair at best and atrocious at worst (Adrian Paul can act, says who? And the guy that plans the Pyramidhead, what gives?) But what made it most incredulous was the editing; since the story is filled with many a cliché (dying man gives his long monologue to teary-eyed hero, longer monologue from a disgusting creature about what is to come in the rest of the story, sex scene between hero and girl after a heart-to-heart, final duel, et all), the editing should at least try for professionalism of some sort.
Not so. This director/editor team is about as toxic as Steven Tyler and Joe Perry in a 1978 hotel room loaded with five 8-balls a piece and a one hooker between the two of them. Often during a fight the characters will be shot as if in slow motion and SPED up, and then back and forth as if there isn't any conviction in just seeing simple fight choreography. But worse are the montages- aside from Bratz, which is in a league of its own, this is some of the just, well, inept editing I've seen in many a moon, particularly at the beginning and end where it seems as though nobody even watched the f***ing last 9/10ths of the movie that came before or after it! The music is also another kicker to go with the director's scheme of assault on cinematic style. By the time it ends- which seems to be longer than it really is despite the long commercial breaks. The only good news that can come is that The Source has now been reached, and the series can now end, like another beheaded immortal or whatever the hell.