This week in the Deep Hurting Project, Highlander: The Source. One of the first films I watched for the Project was Highlander II: The Quickening, albeit in a cut that removed the whole "Highlanders being from another planet" thing and replaced it with something even stupider. And so, as the well of So Bad They're Horrible films runs dry on Amazon Prime, I figured, why not make the last film I watch on the platform for the Deep Hurting Project be a sequel that manages to be even worse than that one? Just for full disclosure, this apparently follows the TV series' continuity and I did not watch that.
- And they start the movie with a list of three rules about Immortals: they can only die if you cut off their head, they gain power by killing other Immortals and they can have no children. Notably, they leave out a lot of other rules, like how they can only fight one on one, how they can't fight on consecrated ground, and, oh yeah, why they're even fighting at all.
- ORBITAL WOBBLE DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!
- Why is Godzilla in this world?
- What is Duncan even doing in this abandoned office building?
- So, Duncan got shot. Guess that means he has to leave wherever this shithole is even supposed to be, right? Or do the other rules they didn't
- How does he know to tell the computer "there can be only one"? And how does it even work, since, if I recall correctly, voice recognition passwords like that tend to rely on a specific person's voice, and why does Duncan even have a computer that allows him to hack into the VR Zoom calls that these random guys are supposed to be having?
- Is there a reason this guy in white body paint and half a Pyramid Head helmet is randomly fighting Duncan? Or why he moves like that one guy in Guardians who showed super speed by suddenly teleporting to another place and then just moving slowly?
- So, if I'm interpreting this scene accurately, and I'm not 100% sure such a thing is even possible, the half-Pyramid-Head guy cuts off Duncan's head and this causes a shitton of sparks to overload what looks like The Space Needle, causing the building he's in to explode and Duncan to walk away.
- "THIS IS THE END OF TIME!"
- So the half-Pyramid Head guy is named The Guardian?
- So, does this make two or three times Duncan "died"?
- And why is he in London all of a sudden?
- So, the Watchers, who, if my research is accurate, are a clandestine organization spread throughout the entire world with a stupefyingly large number of members, have been all but wiped out. I think I'm beginning to see why this is considered a worse movie than The Quickening.
- And, speaking of my research, apparently, Duncan was married to a woman named Kate, who apparently died before the events of this movie. Even though she was also an Immortal. And apparently, there was a long enough gap for him to get remarried to and separate from another woman named Anna, who apparently narrates this film.
- And in addition to that, apparently, that wasn't Duncan who got killed by The Guardian, but some random immortal named Zai Jie and the half-a-Pyramid-Head thing he was wearing was decapitation-proof armour. Although why it vanishes once The Quickening happens is a riddle for the ages.
- Goddammit, Denis Villenueve's Baron Harkonnen is lazy and hard to see!
- And fuck you for your mocking use of "Who Wants To Live Forever."
- THIS IS APPARENTLY NOT ACTUALLY A RIPOFF OF THIS IS SPARTA!
- So, if the Immortals get closer to The Source, they lose their immortality?
- How does Joe, one of the Watchers, whose job is to observe the Immortals and tell their true story once the Prize is claimed, not know that the only way to kill an immortal is to behead them? Why is he dumb enough to think just shooting The Guardian will suffice?
- And now, they're ripping off "Princes of the Universe."
- How the fuck is Saturn closer to the Sun than the Earth?
- And apparently, now that Duncan's virtually at the source, he suddenly becomes more powerful, despite it making other Immortals mortal.
- And here's the kicker: the whole premise that the rest of the fucking franchise is apparently bullshit. The Contest upon which literally every other entry in the franchise is functionally meaningless. The Prize is the ability to bear and conceive children. Fuck this movie, and fuck this franchise, and no fucking wonder that there's been bugger-all in the franchise since then. As far as I can tell, the only new Highlander media since this movie was released has been three graphic novels, all of which appear to follow the movie's continuity and not the TV series' continuity.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.