Monday 13 April 2009

Highlander: The Angsting

I figured since I went through all the trouble of creating a blog I might as well try to contribute something, rather than just farting about in my living room and reading through my newly acquired copies of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes 1 & 2 as well as Batman: The Killing Joke since it occurred to me I didn't have that yet, so I thought I might as well do a review on something.

Not on The League of Extraordinary Gentleman though and not on Batman: The Killing Joke. No, I was thinking about reviewing the animated direct-to-DVD film called Highlander: The Search for Vengeance since that's just so much easier to tear apart.


Now since I already expressed my delight in tearing this movie apart you might be thinking that I hated it, but that is not the case. I actually enjoyed it. Somewhat.

Mind you there will be spoilers.

Now for those of you who don't know what Highlander is, do not fret. It's fairly basic.
The original Highlander was a motion picture that came out in 1986 and centered around the idea that there are a group of immortal people who can not die unless they get their head cut of by another immortal. Supposedly when one immortal kills another the dead immortal's power is transferred to the victor. And when there's only one immortal left in the world he'll be granted limitless power. And for some reason they can't fight on holy ground. Don't ask me why.
It's not a great movie but it is entertaining and well-made for it's time and it still holds up pretty well even by today's standards and it's gotten a cult following.
Then Highlander 2 came along and since then Highlander has desperately tried to regain it's former glory but all to no avail.

Highlander: The Search for Vengeance is the latest attempt and it's not all that bad.

The film takes place is the dystopian future which is about as clichéd as it gets with most of the population being wiped out by some mysterious virus and the remainder of the human race either being holed up underground or roaming the wastelands killing and eating eachother, all sporting ridiculous hair-styles and not nearly enough clothes. And of course there's the self-appointed ruler of the wasteland who lives up in some tower with his half-naked girlfriend and wants to create his own perfect utopia. It's not so much Highlander as it is Fist of the North Star.

The plot centres around the immortal Colin McLeod who is out to seek revenge on some other immortal with a big chin called Marcus Octavius because he killed his girlfriend and burned down his village 2000 years ago and he still hasn't gotten over it. Something even the rest of the cast remark upon how stupid it is.

Not a whole lot of effort seem to have been made to make Colin a likeable character. In fact there's a rather hilarious montage where he flashes back to earlier periods of his life, a bit like how Connor in the original Highlander flashed back to important periods of his life. The major difference being that while Connor flashed back to many different, interesting parts of his life that were interesting to see, Colin always has the exact same thing happening in his flashback with the exception that it takes place in different time periods. For two millenniums Colin hasn't been doing anything other than pursuing Marcus Octavius around the world just so he can kill him and he always has the exact same tactic when attempting to do so. He lunges directly at his arch-nemesis with murderous intent while yelling "MARCUUUUUUS!!!" at the top of his lungs only to immediately after doing so being hacked to pieces or blown up by Marcus or his henchmen but through some amazing coincidence Marcus never actually kills McLeod. Either because he's too busy or because they just happen to be located on holy ground.
It almost started to feel like a running joke and everyone on the film-crew were in on it.

However, in the end I guess we have to root for Colin anyway since all other characters were so shallow or stereotypical it was hard to sympathize with any of them.
Colin is accompanied by a black kid named Joe who's eager to help out and woman named Dahlia who spends most of the movie half-dressed or not at all. Colin is also followed around by the ghost of a druid who's only purpose is to deliver exposition and generally being one of the worst obligatory mentor-characters I have ever witnessed. Why does he follow Colin around? Why does he care? How does he know who the immortals are? I don't know!
Then there's of course the main villain Marcus who spends most of his time in a tower with his half-naked girlfriend talking about how he wants to create a perfect utopia but as you can hear he's not all that interesting either. And he's the one responsible for making the virus for some reason. And of course McLeod kills him in the end. Otherwise he would just spend the rest of his immortal life running after him yelling "MARCUUUUUUS!!!" all the time. And then the quickening magically makes the virus disappear. I'd complain about how that doesn't make any sense but frankly the quickening didn't make a whole lot of sense in the first place.

And then Useless Mentor Guy tries to consort Colin by telling him that his dead girlfriend will only be reincarnated anyway so he shouldn't worry about her dying, thus destroying the entire idea that immortal people can't love because their lovers will ultimately die but apparently it's fine now since they'll just come back later anyway.
Also, Marcus Bigchin's immortal, half-naked girlfriend gets her head blown of by a hand grenade. Granted I'm no Highlander expert but I thought only immortals could kill other immortals. Then again I might be wrong.

That being said, if you can look past all the clichés and shallow characters you might find it entertaining. The animation is spectacular at times and the setting at least works. It had some good action and visuals going for it as well. The voice-acting is... well... it's Manga Entertainment. Actually there's no Japanese audio on the DVD I got so if that turns you off you might want to be careful. The soundtrack isn't Queen but then again what is?

I can't think of a lot of other good points but I know I didn't hate it completely. I had an good time watching it. At best it's worth a rental.

They've at least proven that a Highlander anime can be made and it can be made well.

I guess that's it. I should be going now. Maybe I'll go back to reading comics. Or maybe I'll watch McLeod's flashback montage again.

MARCUUUUUUS!!!

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