Director: Russell Mulcahy
Cast: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Michael Ironside, Virginia Madsen
Have I Seen it Before: One might be forgiven for asking why I decided to write it now.
Did I Like It: If I grade on a curve…
No. I didn’t like it. It’s an objectively bad film. I’m even reasonably sure that I watched one of the later revised cuts, that are supposedly better than the allegedly worst-of-all-time theatrical cut, and there isn’t much to like here. The theatrical cut apparently reveals that the immortals are extra-terrestrials. This may be profane among Highlander fans (I don’t really care if it is), but that’s a much better origin than the warmed over time travel mishmash served here.
Are there plot holes that you can drive a truck through, leaving the entirety of the plot incomprehensible? Sure.
Are the special effects cheap to the point where one wonders if, a la Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987), the filmmakers ran out of money and simply had to release any old thing? I’m kind of thinking that yes, this is precisely what happened here.
Is there no reasonable reason for Sean Connery to be in this film, to the point where the common legend that Bond The First turned down roles in The Matrix (1999) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy because he “didn’t get them” becomes absolutely astonishing? Yes. Demonstrably so. He died rather conclusively in the first film and is alive again in this one for… reasons. This series is about a clan of immortals who can only be killed by beheading. Also, beheading doesn’t matter.
But the consternation the film inspires in people is a little inexplicable. Anyone that is somehow betrayed by anything that happens, or fails to happen, or insists on happening despite all reason, is pointedly forgetting the weird car wreck that is the original Highlander (1986). They’re both crappy. This one is somehow a little more spirited in its crappiness. And that’s something.