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Warrior, Colin MacLeod has travelled through the ages, endlessly
searching for a fellow immortal, Marcus Octavius, the man
responsible for killing his lover on the Celtic plains tens
of centuries ago. His journey has taken him to a post-apocalyptic
New York in the year 2187. The city, now a partly submerged
ruin, is ruled by Octavius, whose despotic plans for the future
include the mass murder of the city's populace. MacLeod has
the power to save the survivors, but driven by a blinding
bloodlust, he has only one goal - to avenge the murder of
his lover. After countless encounters with each other on the
bloody battlefields of history, neither MacLeod nor Octavius
has managed to emerge victorious. Will the remnants of New
York prove to be the final battleground as these two immortals
once again come face to face?...
Highlander:
The Search for Vengeance could have been a fantastic addition
to the Highlander franchise. But, sadly, a weak script
and two dimensional characters mean that this isn't half the
story that it should have been.
The
end result is a rather lame revenge tale that sees Colin MacLeod
spending centuries trying, unsuccessfully, to avenge the death
of his one and only true love. Bitterness has eaten him up
to the point where he only has one reason left to live - he
lives for vengeance against his lover's killer - another immortal.
The
script is incredibly paper thin, which is surprising when
you consider that the back story has already been written
for then. Colin, it would appear, is actually Connor from
the Highlander
movie - albeit with a few slight alterations to that tale.
However, he does belong to the MacLeod clan and is killed
in battle, only to be resurrected and banished from his clan.
The rest of the tale follows MacLeod (in flashback) as he
travels through the ages trying to kill his lover's murderer.
And... er... that's about it.
Seems
a bit of a wasted life to me. Bitterness and torment has,
over all those centuries, turned MacLeod into a bit of a shallow
and pathetic man - and certainly not a hero the audience can
warm to. The end result is that you don't really care what
happens to him. The villain, Octavius, on the other hand,
is a charismatic man who has spent his time using the earth,
and it's inhabitants, as his plaything. He manipulates those
around him in order to build an army that can help him in
his quest - to defend him from the other immortals who are
out to kill each other.
Throughout
the ages MacLeod and Octavius meet on numerous battlefields.
The result is always predictably the same. MacLeod gets beaten
and Octavius is distracted from beheading his prey. So, what
we get is the same scenarios that just becomes ludicrous after
a while. MacLeod finds Octavius and confronts him. Octavius
is stronger, faster and generally slices MacLeod up badly
(without even getting cut by MacLeod's sword), at the height
of the battle Octavius's sword cuts through MacLeod's - leaving
it in two pieces - and just as he is about to kill MacLeod
he is distracted or interrupted in some way. By
the end, I was rooting for Octavius - at least he was living
his life and was by far the better swordsman.
Extras
include East Meets West: Filmmaker's Crossing Borders
(13 min behind the scenes featurette); Interview with director
Yoshiaki Kawajiri (9 min look at his take on the movie); Stills,
Drawings and Stories (6 min photo montage of stills from the
movie, as well as production drawings, set to music); the
original teaser by Madhouse Studios; and trailers for other
anime releases.
The
most annoying thing about these DVD features was the fact
that someone seems to have hit the zoom function whilst transferring
them to DVD. On all of them there seems to be quite a lot
of the image missing from the top, bottom, left and right
of the screen. This is most obvious when two people are on
screen at the same time. What you get is one interviewee on
the left of the screen with half his head missing, and another
half-headed man on the right of the screen. And the titles
that appear to explain who is being interviewed are also chopped
off. Oh, and then there's the fact that it's almost impossible
to read what the features are on the features menu, because
a poor font is used and the text size is a little too small.
All
in all, this is a pretty mediocre offering which is made worse
by a very poor presentation.
Pete
Boomer
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