Highlander III [VHS] [1994]

The acting is superb with some great performances from Lambert, Paul and Donnie Yen. The camerawork is also very cleverly worked as are the special effects. It is obvious that a lot of time was spent on producing this film.

The reason for this film is to bring to an end Christopher Lambert's reign as the Highlander, and pave the way for Adrian Paul to carry the torch. As with the first film we see the timeline flicking from present day to previous chapters in the life of Connor and Duncan McLeod. The film shows us how Duncan was found by Connor, and also explains how people 'become' immortal. This useful as the film does explain one or two loose-ends from the original.

Unfortunately, I think that a lot of the romance of the first film has gone, with the current directors preferring instead to make the film more action based and a lot 'darker' than the original. The film, however, is still great and a definate must see.

Incidentally it is nice to see a proper title for this latest offering, numbering films is distinctly unimaginative and imagination is something that Endgame has plenty of, there is romance, pathos, danger and spectacle all served up with a cetain amount of panache and style. Much of the panache comes from both Adrian Paul and Christopher Lambert who make these characters believable. Christopher Lambert makes a fine fist of displaying the down side of immortality, the unending loss of friends and lovers, mortal and immortal, his decision on how best to defeat Kell is beautifully and convincingly portrayed. As is Adrian Paul's performance as a somewhat tortured Duncan, tormented by the memory of Kate/Faith and the mistake he made regarding her. The appearances of Peter Wingfield and Jim Byrnes as Methos and Dawson whilst integral to the plot were far too brief. (The writer's obvious assumtion that the viewer(s) would know who they were and why they would take such risks to help Duncan could and probably should backfire on them). Kell played by Bruce Payne, is a mesmerising and convincing villain and a worthy opponent of both Highlanders. Lisa Barbuscia as Kate/Faith is a good actress and a strong female presence who plays her role with gusto.

That all said there are problems with this film, some are ones of continuity with the series, it was clearly stated there, that A: Duncan never married and B: Immortals, even whilst living in their Pre-Immortal life cannot have children, these are silly mistakes and should have been avoided, many of those watching this fan will be Highlander fans and errors like these do cause annoyance. (No cries of get a life please, if a film is made of a popular series the writers should do their homework). The other problem is that there was very little lightness in the script, the series dealt with many different themes and some of these were quite dark and intense, but a large part of its charm was the humour shown both by the characters and the situations they occasionally found themselves in. There was very little humour in Endgame and a great deal of navel searching, this made the film a little ponderous in places, but I must admit that despite my criticisms I did enjoy the film and would like to see more, perhaps with more input from the man/actor who actually knows the character and what his reactions are likely to be in any given situation.