Highlander: el encuentro final

Lets be fair. This is not Highlander 4, it's the capstone movie to Highlander the Series. The Series has only the name, and the overall plot concepts in common with the original movie, and the others. There really should be no continuity comparisons between this movie and the others, as it follows them only in name, not in story.

The series is it's own storyline, always was. It changed many of the 'established facts' of the original movie to better suit a long running series, rather than a 2 hr film. More or less, the original movie was set late in the 'game', when there were only a handful of the immortals left. The Gathering was near. In the series, the gathering isn't nearing, it's more of a legend. The number of immortals is large (Duncan does quite a bit of thinning, but still there are more), and new ones are being created all the time. This 'game' may run forever. This idea is well suited for a series, something that can last for many many many episodes. You can't string the audience along with 6 immortals for 8 seasons, it would be boring.

Taking the film for what it is, it's all right. I wasn't overly impressed, but it wasn't as annoying or repulsive as 2 and 3. Duncan was a more important character than Connor in the series. Connor was mainly there to introduce the series, and give the pilot a boost. He was really a minor character. In the series, immortals had very complex relationships, and sometimes working together for years. This was in the first movie, but in a more guarded, limited capacity. Ramirez implied he was going to move on once Connor was ready to make his own in the world, and Castagir hadn't seen Connor in 100 years, it being 200 years since they spent any time together. Not as chummy, but not 100% cold shoulder either.

The film works hard to explain differences in the life of Connor from first movie to series/last movie, doing a pretty good job, it does seem rushed, and a little contrived, but it worked. Like most Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories, the more they try to explain 'how things work' the deeper and deeper they dig themselves into a hole. This creates one of the silliest or most confusion elements of the story: transference of Quickening. Which annoyed many viewers.

Overall, for a fan of the series, this should be an enjoyable film. For fans of the original film, it may be disappointing. Personally, I am holding out for a movie version of a rumored screenplay: a biopic of Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez, that Spanish Peacock!!! (Maybe Connery can be talked into it, but I won't hold my breath)

this movie is good, great story, great background, great acting, great speical effects, great casting and a very good fighting sequences.this is a good movie for all highlander fans thru out the world.

i hope the production put the highlander movie's in video and DVD as well the highlander series too on video and DVD. ( for example : season 1 to 5 or 6 plus the behind-the-scenes footages and bloopers for free ). that will be great idea for christmas presents but also then again it up to the production or company.

if the creator of the highlander series and the movie, he should put Quentin macleod with duncun macleod in " highlander 5 " plus the new show called ( highlander the series : the lost clan ). it's just an idea of mine, i hope this will help the creator of the movies and series if he read this.

Unfortunately the "Highlander" concept has been heavily tainted by multiple visions from a variety of people and a constant push from the money men to milk it for all it's worth. Each individual addition thus far, while reasonable in isolation managed to damage the overall reputation of this franchise and directly damage the quality of the original classic movie when the whole thing is considered together.

Now what they have done with this fourth movie is created something that can't even stand in isolation and when put together with everything else tears it all to pieces, spits on it and throws it in the bin, just for the sake of giving this particular piece some feeling of importance.

One of my biggest pet peeves with movie sequels is when the writers of the latest piece decide to essentially re-write the whole thing and ignore where others have taken us up until this point. For better or worse, we have been taken to a point and it is just arrogance to assume you can re-write it all better then those that have gone before, while it shows limited skill to not be able to work inside that framework. There are many ways they could have made a tie in between the TV series and all the movies work, but they chose to make this a partial reboot instead.

The Critical mistake they made was to belittle the original film. No franchise should dismiss the reason that it is a franchise. Although it would still annoy me, they could have gotten away with the partial reboot, if they had just ignored the 2nd and 3rd movie. They even would have gotten away with not fully following on from the series. But they couldn't resist messing with the original to the point that they almost totally dismissed the events of film as meaningless and so it's no surprise that this has scored the low rating it has here on the IMDb.

I watched the whole of the series as well as all the films and this movie fails to adequately fit in with any of it. One day I hope movie makers will learn that you either need to do a full reboot or get people capable of working with what they already have. Don't just let the new guys mess up everyone that went before them.

I have seen all the movies, and every episode of the acclaimed series. I saw it at the theater and have it on DVD. They were able to blend both the series and the movies together pretty well. The ending on the DVD is better than the theater ending. Though I felt they could have went into a bit more detail. A few important scenes were cut, buy or rent the DVD and you'll see what I'm talking about. The plot and story line are well put together, it made me think and question life in general.

Adrian Pual really shines and gets to show his skill. He is a great martial artist and does help with setting up the fight scenes. Donnie Yen is awesome and is a good match for Adrian. Chris Lambert does a good job, he is the original Highlander. You can see his age showing through, like the rest of us he is only mortal, it happens.

If you are a fan of the series you may be a little saddened with the small parts Methos and Joe(Peter Wingfield and Jim Byrnes) got. I would have liked to see Methos come to life, maybe even a fight scene with one of Kells' followers. Joe has some screen time, but more would have added that much more to the story.

All in all, I love this movie. Even with its faults, hey were only mortals!

All you people saying that the Christopher Lambert is too old to play an immortal should realize that he is only 2 years older then Adrian Paul!!! My God, some of you act like Lambert is 20 years Paul's senior! These guys are basically the same age, so if you call Lambert old, then you are calling Paul old. Lambert is 45 years old, and Paul is 43. At the time of this movie's release in 2000, Lambert was 43 and Paul was 41. Some generational gap eh? If Lambert looked sickly, then it's because he is suffering from myopia, a condition he has always had that has been getting worse.

I stated this in a comment I posted on IMDB.com's "Highlander The Series" section and I will state it here. Christopher Lambert is the superior actor to Adrian Paul. Not only that, but I prefer Lambert's Connor MacLeod to Paul's Duncan MacCleod. I found Connor to be an everyman character, while Paul was an over the top, over manly character. Adrian Paul is so over hunky with that muscular body and pony-tail, that he is unintentionally hilarious. Paul looks like one of those male models spoofed in the movie ZOOLANDER. Come on, the guy looks like a male stripper that should be named "Rico" or something. Guys like Adrian Paul, Antonio Banderas and Lorenzo Lamas are so over hunky that they are all unintentionally hilarious. I know the ladies love Paul, but I found I could relate to Lambert/Connor far more then I could ever relate to Paul/Duncan. Connor was an everyman with a sense of humour, and yet at the same time he came across as well cultured and as well traveled as you would expect an immortal man to be. Duncan was an otherworldy and unreal character with little sense of humour. Duncan was too dark, too brooding. And yes I did find it insulting that the focus of the movie series moved to Duncan. To hell with Duncan, Connor is the real Highlander. I like the TV show, it's very well made and has far better writing and stories then Highlander II-IV ever had. But I wish the TV show revolved around Connor instead of Duncan, if it did it would have been more then a cult favorite. If the TV show was about Connor then it would have really been something on the scale of X-Files or Star Trek. Too bad it had to be about the over the top Duncan.

Long live Connor MacLeod!! The TRUE Highlander!!!!