September 6, 2000 -- "Highlander: Endgame," is the fourth (not counting made-for-TV-movies and the series) film in a series that began with the cult favorite 1986 film.

The story is about the continuing saga of the immortals, a bunch of people who can live forever, if their heads are not cut off. If their heads are cut off, they die and the person who killed them gets their accumulated knowledge and power. The more immortals you kill, the more powerful you become. Strangely enough, a very high percentage of these immortals come from one small town in Scotland (it must be the water).

As is the case with most sequels, the quality is much lower than the original. The storylines continue to be inconsistent. The rules of the game keep changing. In one movie, the immortals come from another planet. Now, there is no explanation for their existence (and that makes a lot more sense). After all the massive number of immortals that got killed in the first three movies, there should only be one left. But of course, more keep popping up. Nonsense is not necessarily a flaw, however. The original film did not make much sense, either, but it was a lot of fun in a very goofy, over-the-top, way.

The plot of this film suffers from a high level of such nonsense, and it takes itself too seriously to be much fun. A subplot involves a woman who is mad at her husband because he turned her into an immortal like himself. So much for the idea that women want to be young and beautiful forever. I don't recall in the other Highlander films that one could acquire immortality so easily. I thought you either were an immortal or were not.

Anyway, you have this huge number of immortals running around, four of them from this one small town in Scotland, and most of them are trying to hack each other's heads off with swords for no really good reason. It isn't much of an idea for a story is it? The plot uses so many flashbacks that it is hard to tell just what is going on. These flashbacks are all done in a desperate attempt to justify all this mayhem.

Christopher Lambert reprises his role as Connor MacLeod (of what clan?) from the original movie. He is joined by fellow clansman Duncan MacLeod (played by Adrian Paul, star of the Highlander TV series). The two have a common enemy, Kell (Bruce Payne of "Passenger 57"), a mad monk from that same little village in Scotland who wants to kill all the other immortals, except Connor. He has a 400-year-old grudge against Connor and he wants to make him suffer for eternity.

One of the more interesting characters is an immortal, Jin (played by Donnie Yen of the "Iron Monkey" series of martial arts films). Jin has some serious martial arts chops, but his time in the film is all too brief. The sword-fighting sequences are not particularly well staged. The special effects are O.K., but the acting is stiff and wooden. Payne, however, does make an excellent villain, even though his motivation is a little suspect (it is perfectly O.K. for my friend to burn your mother at the stake, but I'll torture you forever if you kill my friend). On the whole, it is not nearly as much fun as the original. It rates a D.

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