The Highlander franchise is the funniest franchise in all of science fiction and fantasy, simply for the fact that it battled its way into a corner in 1986, and then spent a decade and a half trying to cut its way out. The original film, starring Christopher Lambert as immortal swordsman Connor MacLeod, was a unique kind of cult classic, a film that predated the current romantasy craze, but nonetheless delivered a sprawling romance story fused with a kind of hard rock sensibility. Two sequels followed, in 1991 and in 1994, though each contradicted the other, and both contradicted the first film. At the end of the original adventure, Connor was the last immortal, but because that was no fun, Highlander continued to cherry-pick from its own canon in order to figure out how to keep making sequels. And by the year 2000, the franchise gave us a Hail Mary that, at the time, was considered to be not just bad, but according to one contemporary review, it was “The leading contender for worst film of the year.”
But, twenty-five years after its release on September 1, 2000, Highlander: Endgame doesn’t really deserve its embarrassing 11 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, if this kind of deft retcon were made in another franchise today, it would be celebrated. This isn’t to say that Endgame is somehow great, but instead, that it was a noble attempt then, and feels fresher today than you might remember. Mild spoilers ahead.
