THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502030116
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
TIME TRIPPING was never more confusing, not even back when little Michael J. Fox did it in a car. Here, yet again, we have Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, a 16th century Scot who skips around the centuries and is apparently immortal, unless someone decapitates him.
The one who most wants to cut off his head is a 400-year-old Mongol warrior named Kane who wears a ring in his nose and speaks with the thundering undertones that only a mechanical sound system could provide. He's played by Mario Van Peebles with stained teeth and a braided hairdo. Peebles has apparently given up leading man status in favor of employment. Kept captive in a Japanese cave for four centuries, he breaks out with a vengeance and crashes into numerous cars on the road from the Newark airport.
This third feature film in the ``Highlander'' series is a muddled mess that makes no sense and has tacky, repetitive special effects. Over and over again, it uses the method called ``morphing,'' perfected in ``Terminator II.'' This has characters turn to jelly before they emerge as some other character. After you've seen it a few times, you keep wondering when we might get a storyline to accompany it.
If you've been worrying about how our government will ever balance the budget, it may come as a shock that something like ``Highlander III'' cost a reported $34 million to produce. Go figure.
Lambert, who was once Tarzan in the classy ``Greystoke'' film, has intense eyes but a tiny voice that contradicts his heroic stance. It doesn't help that he is French and makes no effort to suggest a Scottish accent. Maybe they should have just dubbed him. Most of the actors, including the leading lady, Deborah Unger, look and sound as if they are dubbed in monotone.
Mako, who was an Oscar nominee for ``The Sand Pebbles,'' plays a wise Japanese wizard who gets beheaded by meanie Kane. One wonders why he had to perish, since other characters merely walk through such attacks. One body keeps walking after it's been dismembered and then merely re-joins itself to its former parts. Another head keeps talking after it's been cut from a body.
All this is treated as cartoonish hoopla - a factor that gets it a PG-13 rating rather than a R.
This is the third feature film of the ``Highlander'' series (not counting the TV series), and it promises to be the last. After looking at the haphazard direction given it by MTV specialist Andy Morahan, it is indeed time to lay the Scot to rest. But did his demise have to be quite this silly? ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW
``Highlander III: The Final Dimension''
Cast: Christopher Lambert, Mario Van Peebles, Debrorah Unger,
Mako
Director: Andy Morahan
Screenplay: Paul Ohl, based on the story by William Panzer and
Brad Mirman
Music: J. Peter Robinson
MPAA rating: PG-13 (cartoonish violence, gory but not
realistic)
Mal's rating: *
Locations: Movies 10 in Chesapeake; Circle 4 and Main Gate in
Norfolk; Columbus, Kemps River, Lynnhaven Mall and Surf-N-Sand in
Virginia Beach
by CNB