Highlander: The Source DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

The Highlander, Duncan McLeod is back, and as immortal as ever... for the time being. Adrian Paul reprises his role from the movies and the TV series as McLeod, but this time he's a little more morose than usual. He's coming off a failed marriage with Anna (Thekla Reuten), who left because she wanted something Duncan couldn't give: a child. I honestly wasn't a huge follower of the movies/series but, the little opening factoid thing tells us that immortals can only die when beheaded, when an immortal kills another they gain the deceased's power via "the quickening" and also that immortals cannot make the babies. So yeah, Duncan isn't in the greatest shape when we first see him, but he's thrust into action when some old friends, Joe (Jim Byrnes) and Methos (Peter Wingfield) ask him to go on a quest for The Source, a mythical legend that some (including Duncan) don't believe exists. But, when his ex Anna turns out to be a major part of the quest, Duncan joins them in the quest for The Source.

The main beef with this flick is the absolutely cheesy special effects. I believe this aired on the Sci-Fi Channel before its DVD release, and that makes a lot of sense, if you've ever seen a Sci-Fi Channel movie. While this is MUCH better than the usual fare I've seen from the channel, the cornball effects stand out prominently. The main villain here is The Guardian (Christian Solimeno) and his forte is teleporting/moving really fast in Looney Tunes fashion. It's really quite painful to watch how terrible they actually made these effects, especially since it's a fairly big factor of the movie.

The script from Stephen Kelvin Watkins and Mark Bradley isn't too shabby, with a solid end twist, but a lot of the dialogue is craptastic. Still, he structures the story quite nicely and the characters have enough development to sustain this 86-minute film.

Aside from Adrian Paul in a super turn as Duncan McLeod, the acting is rather dull. Thekla Reuten is as bland as porridge here as Anna, in a performance reminiscent of Claire Forlani on her worst day. It's really surprising since she had such a vibrant spirit and a dandy performance in In Bruges, but I think she tried to pull the mysterious angle too far. The rest of this immortal brood includes Wingfield's Methos, who isn't too bad, Thom Bell as the egotistical, self-centered Cardinal Giovanni (the duality just doesn't work at all...), and Stephen Wright as the young techie immortal Reggie Feller, who sadly doesn't have too big of a performance, but he's pretty darn good.

Director Brett Leonard has an interesting visual eye, but when it comes to anythingn action-oriented, it just falls flat. Aside from the dopey Guardian effects, the fight scenes are just a mess and it seems like the editor just tried to zip past them to cover up how sloppy they were. They hardly seemed choreographed at all, and they seemed to use the effects as a crutch.

Overall, this isn't a bad flick for Highlander fans to get another dose of Duncan McLeod, but it surely won't make any new fans for the franchise.

We get a solid selection of features here, and they start off with A Tribute to Bill Panzer, who was the real brainchild behind the whole franchise and who passed away last year. We get a lot of older, behind the scenes stuff from Panzer and other associates of his like his producing partner Peter Davis and David Abramowitz, the showrunner of the Highlander TV series, and many others. While you do got a really good feel at what a unique individual Panzer was, and they end this thing off with a slideshow of pictures and videos from birth up until his death. This 16-minute feature really gives you a nice look at this beloved man.

Highlander: The Process is up next, and this goes all the way back to September of 2005 with some pre-production meetings and it takes us succincntly through pre-production, but when we get to the production, they throw it in first gear and idle through for about an hour and 15 minutes, nearly as long as the movie itself. When a making-of is almost as long as the movie, that isn't really necessary... especially for a straight-to-DVD release. Brett Leonard apparently thinks he's a lot funnier than he is, and constantly hams it up for the camera which gets annoying as well. We get nothing from post-production either, which is almost a relief since it'd be another hour or so probably. There really is no need for something this ungodly long. Sure, we get some nice stuff here about the making of the movie, but damn. Know when to say when.

Next up are some Storyboard Comparisons, and these can be touch and go. I generally don't like these, but some are cool just because the original conception of the visual turns out so damn close to the finished product. This one is fairly accurate, but not entirely. The second one you can see how the dialogue changes though, mostly for the better. We only get the two here and it's just about six minutes long, but it's pretty darn good.

Lastly we get Highlander Video Game Sneak Peek, and it's basically just a commercial for the game. We don't even see any of the gameplay, just some landscapes. Lame-o.

The film is presented in the widescreen format, in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, enhanced for 16x9 televisions.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio format.

This is actually really slick and eye-catching. The front cover is insanely simple and it's quite a beautiful design. We get the title card up top, and a blue background with these subtle rings representing the planets in the background and in the foreground we have Duncan Mcleod holding up a sword with lightning striking it. Honestly, that doesn't really happen in any sense in the flick, but it's an awesome design, I think. The back is done just as well, with a solid synopsis, another ominous shot of this band of immortal brothers, and some random smaller shots below that along with a brief special features listings and the billing block and tech specs. Just a wonderful packaging design here folks.

This flick is half-and-half. While some parts drag it down, other parts bring it back up. Sadly, they all end up even at the end, and this is really just an average flick. This series, fittingly, never seems to die, and who knows if it ever will. If they keep going for these slick, over-stylized effects, though, I think it might be time to break out the guillotine...