In the 90's, Highlander fans had split into 2 camps; those who loved the movie, and those who loved the TV series. The TV series retconned the movies and took things in a different direction with a different character: Connor's cousin, Duncan. This meant there were two Highlanders, and two fan bases that saw the same movie differently. It raised the usual fan question of who would win in a fight. In this case, Connor or Duncan? The best thing I can say is how much attention it gave the original movie. It uses the same flashback style that the original used, and even used the same cast (somehow Rachel and Heather had not aged a day, making you wonder who the real immortal is). This time, the flashbacks tell a different story than the first, the story of Connor's time with Duncan and their travels together. The flashbacks are definitely the most interesting part of this movie.The villain, though, is not particularly interesting. Bruce Payne plays a fallen priest who is immortal, who is intent on breaking the rules of The Game. It brings up a big question: if a couple of immortals just decided they could ignore the rules, why has it taken them so long to band up and kill the others? The character's story in the flashbacks contrast with his modern appearance - he stops being a believable character and becomes more cartoonish. He is surrounded by thugs, any of which would have been a more compelling nemesis. It also makes you wonder what is so special about Glenfinnan that is produces more immortals than anywhere else in the world.Does the movie resolve the rift between fans? Well, it tries. But it also retcons the central plot to the first movie: The Gathering. It never happened. Connor is at home in the flashbacks, but in the modern scenes acts like he really don't want to be there. Endgame is really an ending to the TV series that connects it to the original movie, and telling it from the perspectives of both characters. This is Duncan's movie, as Connor is removed for periods of time.Honestly, if the modern scenes were cut from this movie completely, it would actually be a good Highlander film.

The Highlander series has these problems and more, being first a film franchise that started well and then went suddenly sickeningly wrong, then a syndicated TV show, and now again a film property. Moreover, the underlying concept behind it all — a global race of immortals locked in combat since the beginning of time — lends itself so easily to story and backstory permutations that the Highlander mythos has become a huge, convoluted tapestry that only the most hardcore fans can follow. Highlander: Endgame makes a valiant effort at cleaning things up, presumably to hand the films over to Adrian Paul (star of the TV series, whose producers, Davis/Panzer Productions, are at the helm here), but in the end it's just too massive a job. Nice fight scenes, though.

Christopher Lambert made the first HIGHLANDER in '86. Highlander: ENDGAME was mad 25 years later.Time has not been kind to Mr. Lambert. His face has aged - not good if you're supposed to be 'immortal' - so, many of Me. Lambert's scenes are... 'misty.'I'm not begrudging either the film, Nor Mr. Lambert - however it's disconcerting to see someone who played the same role as a strong, vital, youthful actor, and then, to see him, and try to ignore what is plain to see.I DO like the HIGHLANDER franchise, and, I think that, with this one - the last (as far as THIS series is considered), is a fine farewell to it.

Unfortunately the "Highlander" concept has been heavily tainted by multiple visions from a variety of people and a constant push from the money men to milk it for all it's worth. Each individual addition thus far, while reasonable in isolation managed to damage the overall reputation of this franchise and directly damage the quality of the original classic movie when the whole thing is considered together.Now what they have done with this fourth movie is created something that can't even stand in isolation and when put together with everything else tears it all to pieces, spits on it and throws it in the bin, just for the sake of giving this particular piece some feeling of importance.One of my biggest pet peeves with movie sequels is when the writers of the latest piece decide to essentially re-write the whole thing and ignore where others have taken us up until this point. For better or worse, we have been taken to a point and it is just arrogance to assume you can re-write it all better then those that have gone before, while it shows limited skill to not be able to work inside that framework. There are many ways they could have made a tie in between the TV series and all the movies work, but they chose to make this a partial reboot instead.The Critical mistake they made was to belittle the original film. No franchise should dismiss the reason that it is a franchise. Although it would still annoy me, they could have gotten away with the partial reboot, if they had just ignored the 2nd and 3rd movie. They even would have gotten away with not fully following on from the series. But they couldn't resist messing with the original to the point that they almost totally dismissed the events of film as meaningless and so it's no surprise that this has scored the low rating it has here on the IMDb.I watched the whole of the series as well as all the films and this movie fails to adequately fit in with any of it. One day I hope movie makers will learn that you either need to do a full reboot or get people capable of working with what they already have. Don't just let the new guys mess up everyone that went before them.