...

When it comes to part 4 of a Movie series that has a huge fan base, but really has not done cracking business at the boxoffice, you gotta wonder what the motivations are behind such a movie.
You also know that the studio is concerned over a "part 3, or 4, or 5" when the Drop the "number" and refer to it something like Main Movie Title: Uh-ho another Shameless Sequel.

After the abysmal parts 2 and 3 of the highlander series, I had pretty much given up on the whole movie deal and only bothered with the TV stuff, and like many others, overlooked Highlander : Endgame at the cinemas. Perhaps this was a good idea, as THAT version DIDN'T even make it to DVD!. For on DVD we have the "producers Cut"..though the region 4 Sleeve FAILS to mention this rather important piece of information!!! (and also makes one other glaring error regarding the aspect ratio..well actually there's other errors listed below in the extras :)

The one thing that has annoyed me a little about the Whole Highlander thing is the inconsistency. At the end of part 1, that really should have been the end! Connor Macleod (Christoper Lambert, who is "suppose" to be an immortal and so NEVER ages, looks a good 15 years older now :) BUT now, he's done battle with quite a few more immortals (one was even frozen in ice, so no one could "sense" him) AND he sorta kinda has a clan-brother in Duncan Macleod (Adrian Paul, of the first Highlander TV series). Given the ending of Number 1, NONE of this could have possibly happened!!!! Curse that film disease known as Sequelitis !! :)

This time around we learn a little more backstory of Connor, and it's that his mother is burnt at the stake (for having raised a son who they think is born of the Devil or something) by a priest, Kell (Bruce "that 2nd Warlock guy again" Payne). In a mad rage, Connor kills the priest's father, followed by the priest Kell ..turns out that Kell is another one of these Immortal beings..uh-oh, and he ain't too thrilled with Connor having killed Daddy!.

Anyhoo, near one century after his own rebirth, Connor senses a new immortal amongst a rather large gathering of dead warriors, Duncan (Adrian Paul of the highlander TV Series), and so like Remerez did for him, teaches Duncan the ways of the immortals, and the two form a close brother-type bond.

It's now the year 2000 and Kell has been responsible for killing well over 600 other immortals, compared to Connor's some 200 and Duncan's 100 odd. This makes Kell the most power Immortal in the world (for an immortal absorbs the power of those he kills, as well as his victims kills)

Kell is pretty peeved off with Connor for killing his dad and wants for Connor to be the 2nd last immortal so as the two can do battle for the prize.

Come number 4 I really had the lowest of expectations for this film, but have to admit It was actually pretty good. The film really rests on the bond between the two lead characters of Connor and Duncan, and the good versus evil deal takes a back seat. (though Bruce Payne as Kell is a having a blast)
Thrown in a love story with Duncan and his immortal ex-lover Kate (Lisa Barbuscia) and you've got the 2nd best story in the Highlander series. (well I at least think so :)) (just don't try to think about it too much as like the others, it sorta kinda overlooks a few a film prior highlander film facts :)

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VIDEO
Coming to us as an 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen transfer (NOT 1.85 as indicated on the back cover!!) it's quite nice, but is rather inconsistent in the quality of the transfer.

Starting at the telecine transfer stage you have a scattering of telecine frame dropouts (so the image will appear to jump as a single frame is missing here and there) as well as a few spots of image wobbling. These aren't overly distracting, and no way near as bad as the ones in Reindeer Games, which incidentally originated with miximax/dimension (USA)

Colour saturation is okay, but as mentioned on the comm track the colour timing isn't perfect, so one shot the colour will look great, and then on a reverse shot, it'll be either higher or lower to a small degree.
Black Level is too low (miramix seem to do this will a lot of their transfers) and so shadow detail suffers to some extent, as what should be different shades of grey and black, sink into one another, and this reduces the layering of images.
Sharpness is mostly good, with only the odd instant of wavering.

One the PLUS side, the print is immaculately clean, and even with the above mentioned problems, I think you'll find the piccy to still be quite nice to look at (I know I don't hate it, but still wish it could have been better), and Roadshow have a done a splendid job with encoding what they had to deal with.

Even though this DVD is Dual Layered, it would appear as though the movie is contained on just one layer.  (the massive running time of the extras themselves no doubt fill the whole 2nd layer of the disc...it's chocka!!! :)

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AUDIO
Some movies are a prime candidates for supped-up sound and this film is one of the them! (the overall sound level is still too high by a good 4-5 dB, so be sure to compensate for this by dropping your main volume level first :)
This Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is a full on assault from start to finish, with a soundstage that will totally surround you. Dialogue is well locked onto the centre and is pretty clean and intelligible, (and at times there was some rather noticealbe audio sync slippage..like during the infamous "JVC" sequnce :) 
Surround usage is very aggressive with excellent use of split surrounds (works nicely in "6.1" mode to folks :) and Bass/LFE attack is at a very good level to the remainder of the mix and so integrates without being overly dominant.

Also at times i noticed an ever so slight amount of distortion in the high end.  It was never anything really serious, and to be quite honest, with this sound track being so damn full on, it's pretty easy to overlook and not even hear at all, buuut it may make you go...hmm at times is all.  

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EXTRAS
Damn, I didn't expect THIS many extras.

Firstly, our region 4 version is missing one major extra (and a few other tiny things) available on the region 1 version, which was released as a 2 disc set, just for these extras.
- The ORIGINAL pre-theatrical cut of the film. This was NEVER made into a print for release and has come direct from the AVID system and as a result is of a rather poor quality. it also contains many unfinished FX sequences and only comes with a 2 channel sound mix. As interesting as this may be to check out, from reports, it's not going to be something you'd watch over and over again.
- Trivia Game and DVD Rom Stuff.

Other than that we've got all the other extras on our Region 4 DVD

• Audio Commentary. Film Editor and Producers. Given This version of Highlander:Endgame is the "producers" cut, they've supplied the commentary and it's a good one. VERY informative and very rarely does it taper off. worth a listen to get some insight into the changes between the "Miramax" cut and the "producers" cut.
• Deleted Scenes : 5 deleted/extended scenes (one which is suppose to be an Easter egg gag ) runs about 6 minutes. 4x3 2.0 sound
• Trailer ...only 4x3 with 2 channel sound :(
• Biographies. pretty detailed stuff. (one a trivial note. The quality of the sound over the bios menu..which is Dolby 2 channel, 320kpbs encoded.... is particularly good (compared to the same passage during the closing credits, it reveals a considerable amount more detail)
• Visual Effects : A Historical Progression. Okay, now I love extras, but this is soooo boring. The problem is that each "snippet" of the daily, avid temp footage, or final product is so short, you sorta go "huh? what was that?" there is 36 minutes worth of this stuff and is broken down into 30 skippable chapters...my advice, go straight from 1 to 30!
• Behind the Scenes. now THIS was the most startling. Here's me thinking..okay the usual 7 minute fodder...but NO! this "behind the scenes" featurette runs a WHOPPING 57 minutes!!
  While not as compelling as saw the Jaws doco, it's still a cut above and is full of information and interviews that makes it worth watching. presented 4x3 with 2 channel sound and 13 chapters
• Highlander Timeline. traces the production dates of eth highlander films, and TV shows. and I dunno who over at Miramax wrote these text pages but they should be shot!! Virginia Madison was NOT in Number 1!! she was only in Number 2!! (sorry but that annoyed me, OH and Connor Macleod is NOT 5000 years old as it rather ambiguously indicates in the bios (they "could" maybe mean that with the immortals he's killed he's obtained THEIR knowledge, extra which gives him some 5000 years of data, but it reads as if he's 5000, not 450+)
• Dolby Digital TRAIN trailer

Highlander : Endgame is a much better film than I expected, is a very nice followup to #1, at least, and it was great to see the inclusion of several key cast members from the original film, making their token return in #4 :) As a DVD it's not too shabby, but could have had a better film to tape transfer made at the Miramax end.

Review Equipment
TV: Pioneer SD-T50W1 (16:9 RPTV)
DVD: Pioneer DV717  (using RGB outputs)
Receiver : Denon AVC-A1SE THX Ultra (Dolby Surround EX, DTS-ES Discrete)
Speakers:-
     Mains: Quadral Amun
     Centre: B&W CDMC-SE
     Surrounds Left/Right: M&K SS500 (Dipole)
     Surrounds Back : Polk RT/fx (Diplole)
     Subby: M&K V125 

- Reviewed 25th September 2001

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