YMMV / Highlander: The Source

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In the U.S. cut, the Guardian's mocking Duncan in a Scottish accent comes out of nowhere, and he never does anything like it again. In the longer Russian cut the Guardian tended to do mocking impersonations of his victims — later doing the same with Reggie and Giovanni — but this was removed when the movie was edited down for the U.S. cut.
• Broken Base: Over whether the Russian or U.S. cut is the more tolerable one. The former has copious levels of Special Effect Failure throughout due to being a clearly not-quite-finished workprint, and the Guardian behaving even more idiotically than in the U.S. cut, but the latter cuts out several character moments, makes some bizarre soundtrack choices and, most infamously, adds in a narration which explicitly says that every prior Highlander film and episode was based on a false premise.
• Contested Sequel: There's a lot of debate if this film is worse than The Quickening, or other way around.
• Ham and Cheese: The Guardian's performance is incredibly over the top and might be the one remotely good thing about this movie. Though for some, he overdoes this so much, it just becomes annoying instead.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The Guardian is a painfully unfunny and annoying recycle of the Kurgan, but where the Kurgan usually knew when to turn off his bizarre, borderline Cloudcuckoolander dialogue when it's time to get serious, the Guardian barely ever behaves seriously and is more like a Looney Tunes character if written by the people that made the Saw franchise.
• Memetic Mutation: But that could just be orbital wobble.
  • Orbital wobble is one thing but this ...
• Narm:
  • The Guardian is meant to be an immortal, ageless and ancient being who guards the Source. Our hero's introduction to this deadly threat involves the Guardian running up to him and yelling, at the top of his voice, "THIS IS THE END OF TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!" It comes so totally out of nowhere that even the characters are left standing there awkwardly for a few seconds afterwards with Duncan in particular having a look on his face that just screams "...the HELL?" while the Guardian looks at the ground for a moment as if pondering "Why did I just do that?"
  • The final battle. Especially the end. Essentially the fight ends with Duncan spinning around the Guardian so fast that the Guardian drills into the ground up to his neck.
  • In the longer cut, this scene also has Duncan and the Guardian using their super speed to spin up dust devils from the sand to throw at each other (yes, really,) as well as Anna spinning around like a helicopter and taking off when the planets finish aligning.
  • It would take a while to name every ridiculous moment from The Guardian, but him shouting "Hi, Joooooooooe!" after being hit by an SUV and knocked flying through the air might be one of the most ridiculous moments aside from his introduction.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The "This is blasphemy!" exchange actually isn't meant to be a rip-off of 300, as many have accused it of being. Both this film and 300 were filmed at roughly the same time, but The Source ended up being stuck in Development Hell and released well after 300.
  • The Guardian's infamous "I AM THE END OF TIME!" line isn't an original quote. Kronos said it first in The Series shortly before losing his head to Duncan..
• The Scrappy: Just about all of the new characters to some extent; Anna for being bland and a Creator's Pet, Reggie for trying too hard in his comic relief role, Giovanni for his ridiculous appearance and one-dimensional Holier Than Thou personality and the Guardian for being both a borderline Invincible Villain and taking the "Hammy villain" shtick so far that literally nearly every single one of his lines is some sort of wisecrack and thus he's impossible to take seriously.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The single quickening we get is probably the most visually intense in the entire franchise, but just before the building explodes, there is a massive blue-screen failure resulting in the Guardian appearing to pass through one of the chairs in the room like a videogame character with a noclip cheat.
  • The greenscreening used to insert Giovanni into a stock background of a cathedral looks absolutely awful, with the lighting and colour levels on the actor and background not matching at all, leading some to suspect that this was a temporary effect from the Russian cut that the filmmakers forgot to replace for the U.S. cut.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The vaguely described, society-destroying, cannibal-producing apocalypse that has produced the society that this movie is set in tends to leave many viewers feeling like they're watching an inferior movie that takes place immediately after another, much more interesting one.

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