Hey folks, Harry here with a scoop from Quiotxe29 upon the script for HIGHLANDER 4: WORLD WITHOUT END. I believe, could be mistakened, that this is our first real peek inside the jacket of this, the latest in the Highlander series. There are spoilers below... but they are labeled, enjoy...

Long-time reader, first time poster with a script review for the Highlander 4 movie. While it has currently undergone several name changes, I believe it is now referred to as Highlander: World Without End. IMDB has the writers listed as Gillian Horvath and Joel Soisson from a story by William Panzar. Panzar also did the stories for both the second and third Highlander films, if that is an indicator. While nowhere near as bad as those two, Highlander 4 isn't all that great either.

I've always had a problem with the Highlander franchise. I thought Highlander was a fantastic film. It's not high art but it's entertaining as hell and has some great characters as personified by Christopher Lambart, Sean Connery and Clancy Brown. The trouble is, it doesn't warrant a sequel. It has a logical three-act beginning, middle and end. A stand-alone film. Now, I know common sense and Hollywood rarely collide in the same sentence, but this is as far as the clan MacLeod saga should have gone. Instead, we were subjected to Highlander II: The Quickening. In this one, the writer(s) completely dismissed the mythic feel of the first by reimagining the Immortals as aliens! I won't even go into it. If you've seen it, then you're here with me. The third, Highlander III: The Sorcerer ignored The Quickening and apparently the Immortal moto: There can be only one (unless of course there's this guy who's been frozen forever and now he's out and pissed at Conner. Ther! e can be only two?)

During this time, Highlander the Series also debuted. While not a huge fan, I thought that it did more justice to the entire Highlander mythos and introduced some intriguing new aspects such as the Watchers, etc. Not great but not all that bad either. Adrian Paul seemed more than capable of handling himself and I thought he had far more range than Lambert did/does.

Given the popularity of the series, it was pretty inevitable that Highlander 4 would come about. While reading the script, I kept thinking of a similar movie: Star Trek: Generations. Yep, it's one of those out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new types of movies where the older wiser character(s) shows the whipper-snapper a thing or two and then faces off against the bad guy only to get his ass kicked so the new guy can get super pissed and do what the old guy couldn't: Kick the bad guy's ass. The entire screenplay is packed with this passing of the torch motif that is becomes as predictable as paint-by-numbers.

SPOILERS

Here's the plot in a nutshell: There's this bad guy Kell who is some sort of invincible Immortal/Priest/David Koresh type of person. He has managed to gather a flock of Immortals who worship him and do his bidding. That is essentially: find immortals who are not with him and kill them. Actually, they just trap them so that Kell can them. This way he gets their Quickening and thus becomes more and more powerful.

Now, as luck would have it, Kell has a major thing for Conner MacLeod. It seems that way back when, Kell accused Conner's mother of witchcraft and had her burned at the stake. Conner went nuclear, killing most of the villagers who took part in the burning and then 'killing' Kell. When he killed the mortal Kell, the immortal Kell was born. And, lest we forget Duncan, it turns out that his ex-wife who is super pissed at him, is now one of Kell's followers.

The Watchers, in the meantime, have kidnapped a very bitter and morose Conner and are holding him at a place called the Sanctuary. See, since Kell is supposedly invincible, if he were to defeat all of the Immortals then mankind would suffer an eternity of Darkness (have we heard this before?). So they've taken Conner and plan on keeping him captive forever. That way there will always be one Immortal that Kell cannot get and thus mankind won't be plunged into darkness.

So, anyway Connor is busted out, meets up with Duncan. They have a couple of introspective flashback sequences, Conner and Kell face off a couple of times but never really fight because Kell is more interested in toying with Conner as opposed to killing him. It seems that Conner has developed a death wish. Conner realizes that he can't beat Kell, Duncan has to deal a little with his ex-wife who is also Kell's lover, their's some intrigue involving the Watchers that has series regular Joe Dawson returning to help his friend Duncan. Methos is also along for the ride but only to spout Yoda-like advice before disappearing. Conner reaches the conclusion that the only way that Kell can be defeated is a combined Duncan/Conner. That means, only one thing. One of them has to die and take the quickening of the other.

First, the problems. Kell is written like the Kurgen's bastard son and falls short. As he's written now, he just seems like every other sneering villian we've seen on the series. Conner has none of the flair that he brought to the original or even the sequels for that matter. He's just morose and monotone through this. Duncan just strives to play catch-up and the sub-plot with his ex-wife is a snoozer. This, however, is my biggest problem. In the flashback sequences, we are treated to several training scenes between Duncan and Conner, similar to the ones between Conner and Ramirez in the original. Now this is fine and dandy, derivative as hell, but fine. Conner, however, teaches Duncan a super-secret sword move that almost ensures instant victory. Guess which move is then used to defeat the bad guy in the end? What is this, the Karate Kid? Daniel Russo and the Crane Technique? I thought it was ridiculous, especially since Conner never tried to use it on Kell when ! he had the chance. Then you had the series regulars who appeared and disappeared without doing all that much for the story.

The good? I liked the final battle sequence. If executed properly, it really could be something to behold.

Anyway, this is the review. Make of it what you will.

Quiotxe29