Not Even Queen Could Save This

Syfy movies:  Highlander; the Source; Incomprehensible and incoherent. 

There Can Be Only One—And There Should Have Been 

For those of you who don’t watch fantasy movies or TV shows, here is enough to get you started.  In the original movie, Christopher Lambert played an immortal.  There are more like him.  They all have cool swords and they meet up, over the centuries, and challenge each other to duels.  The only way to kill an immortal is to cut off his head—and it will always be his head, at least in the first movie, since they are all male.  They are also all sterile (good thing too—immortal and fertile?  Recipe for trouble).  Anyway, there is a slogan among the immortals; “There can be only one.”  All the immortals are in a tontine. When all but one of the immortals has been killed, something wonderful happens to the survivor.  I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you what. 

Then there was a basic cable TV show based around a different immortal character, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.  We presume that the TV show was a “reboot” since there are dozens of immortals around, and more begin popping up like mushrooms after a good rain. 

Time passes, the show goes off the air, and then sometime later they made this thing called Highlander III; the Source.  It is the TV storyline the movie chooses to follow. And Syfy can’t wait to show it; over and over. 

Somewhere in Eastern Europe. . . 

Generally speaking, a movie that relies on voice-over narration is not a good movie.  There are exceptions; for example, The Usual Suspects.  The Source is no Suspects.  

A woman, speaking over the action, tells us that the world has fallen apart, in some unspecified way, while the location card on the screen lets us know we are Somewhere in Eastern Europe.  Somewhere in Eastern Europe; that’s always a good place to set a movie. There’s a guy running down a dark street, dodging the occasional listless looter (it appears the streets have been like this for months; these must be underachiever looters).  He has a sword.  He does something—I missed what.  The scene shifts to a nicer venue and two guys are talking to each other virtually with nifty spectacles that project hologrammatic images.  One of them talks about how all the planets in the solar system are shifting out of their orbits into some kind of mystical alignment.  “This goes against celestial mechanics!”  one of them shouts.  They’re both immortals.  They know this planetary lineup means the immortals must find The Source. 

Elsewhere, a guy in monsignor’s robes and a Billy Idol bleach-job is also talking virtually to the first guy with the sword, about the location of the source.  Then the first guy gets killed by a guy wearing patches of armor and sporting a very bad attitude.  Next we see a guy in a shearling coat crouching on the top of a building, like Batman.  It’s Duncan MacLeod!  And the VO narrator tells us that she was married to him, so it’s an immortal domestic drama. 

Time passes; the surviving guys all get together somewhere.  There is Methos, an ancient Roman, who used to be on the TV show, and Giovanni, the bleach-job monsignor, a guy with a cockney accent, MacLeod and a regular human guy, known as a Watcher, named Joe. They go into the woods and try to get entrance to a rustic-spa-monastery to meet with The Elder.  They are refused but a mysterious woman (guess who!  Can you guess?) scales the wall.  The monks let her in, and then let the immortals in.  It’s MacLeod’s wife and our narrator!  She has had visions about the planets and the half-armored guy and a bunch of other stuff.  Nobody wants to talk to the immortals, but everyone wants to talk to her, including the gross Elder, who explains that the immortals must go find the Source; that she has to be the leader, that they’ll be challenged by the Guardian—that’s the bad attitude guy—and the only one of them can find the Source. If they find the Source, something will happen.  Maybe it’s good; I was never clear on this. 

Jupiter Aligns with Mars 

Meantime; bad attitude guy kills Joe.  Immortals hire a freighter and sail somewhere.  They confront a bunch of bad guys on land.  Then the movie jumps forward to show them driving into the forest, and suddenly, under Queen’s incandescent harmonies (“Here we are, born to be kings, we’re the princes of the universe. . .”) we get a flashback to the battle with the bad guys.  You know, the scene they could have just shown to us in real time.  Why the flashback?  It’s a mystery.  They find an abandoned cottage.  Methos and Giovanni squabble about religion. MacLeod, the woman and the cockney guy go on watch.  MacLeod and his ex have a heart-to-heart talk that soon involves unbuckling belts and unzipping flies; and bad attitude guy fights the cockney guy, but he doesn’t cut off his head.  The cockney guy dies anyway.  Oh, no, this is bad!  The immortals are becoming mortal.  

Then they’re captured by a motorcycle gang that lives in the woods.  Why would a motorcycle gang live in the woods, instead of near pavement?  I don’t know.  They have a two-story-high wicker man kind of thing and all the immortals and the woman tied up on a platform.  Giovanni gets his hand free and escapes.  Instead of helping the others, he shouts, “There can be only one!”  and runs into the forest. We don’t like Giovanni. Bad attitude guy appears and takes the woman, telling her that the Source wants to talk to her.  Off they go.  MacLeod and Methos escape.  The motorcycles roar into life and come after them.  Whatever may have caused the collapse of the free world, it wasn’t a dearth of fossil fuel.  Methos tells MacLeod to go on, find the woman and the Source, because MacLeod “is the best of us.”  

Oh, and by the way, these planets?  They’re not only bailing out of their orbits right and left, but they’ve grown closer to earth.  Much closer; like, earthquake and tidal wave close; like, bumping into the moon close; much too close for comfort. 

A Bundle of Joy 

Of course, McLeod has to fight with the Guardian, he of the bad attitude and partial armor.  While the woman stands on a stairway (to heaven?) they duel, moving superfast, equally matched until somehow MacLeod tricks the Guardian into cork-screwing himself into the ground.  But MacLeod won’t kill the Guardian; he shows mercy.  Screen goes black. 

Ah, you think it’s over.  Wrong!  In a two-minute montage, all the action scenes play back for us while the woman narrates again about how the message of the source isn’t death, it’s life and the “one” who remains survives because he is pure of heart. And that’s MacLeod, pure of heart.  His prize is that he gets to have a child (and grow a beard in the last scene).  Well, actually, we assume that human biology has stayed pretty much the same in spite of this miracle and that she will be the one bearing the child. This child will save the world.  The last frame of the movie is a fetus-face, smiling, very Two Thousand and One; A Space Odyssey. 

Why?  Oh, I get it; a child who is half human, half immortal.  Why, it’s almost like being the child of a god!  Kid, get those planets back in order, would’ja? 

The movie played as if half the cast had to go back to their real jobs after three days of filming, so they cut the script in half and hoped the woman talking over the action would cover that up.  Then they scrounged around and found some random action edits that had been cut out of other movies, and stitched them into the narrative and hoped no one would notice.   The movie may not be quite as bad as I think, because I was doing dishes through part of it.  It’s still a long way from coherent. 

Even Queen couldn’t save this. My suggestion; when it comes on again, go to your computer and find a YouTube video of Queen singing “Princes of the Universe.”  Play that instead, and then go for a nice walk or something.