idoru2099

I'm sorry, Dario but this doesn't belong next to your other "Mother" films. It's really funny that some people dare compare it to his older films and especially to Suspiria.

On the good side, Dario proves that he is still inventive in his killing scenes. Actually, this may be his most gory film. Violence and gore are really over the top, sometimes to such a degree that it can be comic. But in the direction/atmosphere department things don't look that good. The film never manages to build the really tense atmosphere we've seen at other Argento films and old masterful camera moves are mostly absent. The special effects don't help much, either. Blood and gore is done pretty good, but the Spirits and other CGI moments (God, I hate CGI in horror films) are at least cringe-worthy.

Of course Dario's decline hasn't started now, I consider his last decent film to be Sleepless (2001) and before that, Opera (1987). It's just that the story and the acting don't help either. What's new ? you'd say. Admittedly, especially in the acting department Dario's films were never that good, but here most of the acting is really bad. Especially his daughter (which he so much likes to torture in his movies) delivers some of the worst acting I've seen. She was never that good an actress, but especially in this film she's very bad. The fact that she has lost that exotic youth she portrayed in his older films lessens even more her overall appearance.

I'll give it a 5/10 because there *are* some strong moments in the movie (albeit a few), but all and all I would only recommend this film to die-hard Argento fans, or people that badly want see some over-the-top gore. There can be no comparison whatsoever between this film and the previous "Mother" movies, or his other golden-era films. If you really want to get to know one of the best horror filmmakers ever, watch Suspiria, Tenebre, Phenomena, Inferno and Profondo Rosso.

What went right with the Highlander TV series starring Adrian Paul? First it was the main protagonist that really got into the role of the highlander, second it was the fact it it had very good swordplay and martial arts action and third it was those well done flashbacks into history, that showed many different time-lines and presented conflicts that lasted for centuries...

So, what is wrong with this movie? All the things stated above are missing...Yes we have Duncan , Mythos and Dawson but the script is really poor, the main villain is ridiculous , there are no flashbacks no swordplay whatsoever. All we get is a clown jumping around talking gibberish (the so-called guardian) and a crappy story about the "legendary" source.

The direction tries to seem cool but it ends up rather boring, and the acting is poor. Of course I wasn't expecting any great acting or imaginative direction but at least I was expecting some believable special effects...I didn't get those either the SFX are bad and uninventive. Obviously the movie hasn't got a big budget but it would have been adequate if it was used properly and with a story that didn't involve guardians with superpowers and other cosmic forces.

In the end it just feels sad that the Highlander franchise probably ends with such a bad movie. It's even worse than "Endgame" and that is really an achievement. Adrian Paul isn't much of an actor but give him a Katana and let him do his martial stuff and he'll work some magic. Unfortunately in this movie he does nothing of the above so in the and we get nothing , not even a good action scene...