The Shadow (1994)

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Cast: Alec Baldwin, John Lone, Penelope Ann Miller, Peter Boyle

Have I Seen It Before?: Oh, sure. I’m still kind of befuddled why this film didn’t take fire in 1994 like it might have. There are troubles with the film, to be sure (more on that later), but there are several far worse film that captured the imagination of America’s youth. It sure captured mine. I bought up all the Shadow action figures I could get a hold of, and grabbed as many tapes of old Shadow radio shows as I could, igniting my interest in both Orson Welles and radio drama.

Now that I think about it, this film has quite a lot to answer for.

Did I like it?: Let’s dwell on the positives, shall we? I think the only thing that separated Alec Baldwin from a long run as a verifiable leading man is a run of bad luck. In this film he is equal parts menacing, funny, and charming. Had he been British, he would have made a great Bond. Even though this film kind of falls apart under its own weight, I could have watched a long series of him as Lamont Cranston. I’ll eagerly take 30 Rock as consolation prize, though. The rest of the cast is brilliant. The movie contains Jonathan Winters, Ian McKellan, and Tim Curry without breaking a sweat. Every other bit part (and some of the leads, let’s be honest) ooze b-movie goodness in ever second of screen time.

Jerry Goldsmith’s score is one of his best, and that’s a career that’s included Gremlins (1984), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and Star Trek: First Contact (1996).

The film looks amazing, from the cinematography through the production design, all the way through the set decoration. I dare say a far more effective art deco nightmare than some of the contemporary Batman films. It manages to make an effective Times Square of the the 1930s using only matte paintings, and the Shadow’s sanctum is one of the cooler sets that is tragically underutilized. The whole world, filled with an evil man forced into redemption—and his agents—is fantastic.

Now, if all of that had been used in service of a storyline that wasn’t held together by very weak string, and further waylaid by what feels like tampering at the editing bay, then we’d be celebrating this film for the delicious pop explosion it could have been.

But then again, so many films stories are flimsy as hell. Who cares? Let’s give this film all of the credit it is due.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

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.

Highlander (1986)

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Cast: Christopher Lambert, Roxanne Hart, Clancy Brown, and… Sean Connery?

Have I Seen it Before: Never. 

Did I Like It: God help me… Maybe?

I can’t be the first one to bring this up, but I’d be remiss if I completely avoided the issue.

A British spy. An Irish cop. A Russian submarine captain. Whatever the hell he played in Zardoz (1974). Connery has been—at least on paper—miscast more than any major movie star in history.

And then we come to Highlander. The movie about a Scottish immortal casts the frenchman as the Scot, and the most Scottish man who ever Scott’ed (and didn’t run a starship engine room) gets to play the Spaniard?

Oh. He’s an Egyptian. My mistake.

Truly bewildering decisions not withstanding, this opening entry in the inexplicable Highlander franchise is a wobbly hut built on the foundation of other, much better films. It plays out like a mixture of Terminator (1984) and The Duellists (1977), but clearly wasn’t made with any of the skill of either Ridley Scott or a James Cameron. I admire one of Mulcahy’s films, 1994’s The Shadow, but even that is a pillar of flaws with a few brief flourishes of watchability. This seems to be his M.O.

The fact that Christopher Lambert has enjoyed any manner of a career, while at the same time we collectively sneer at the very presence of Tommy Wiseau. They occupy the same real estate in moviedom. I don’t get it. Now that I think about it, has anyone seen Lambert and Wiseau in the same place at the same time?

And yet, it’s been almost a day since I watched the movie as I type this review, and Highlander hasn’t left my mind since. It’s almost gleefully bad, and, again, God help me, I’m morbidly intrigued to take in the experience that is Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), because apparently that is the truly inexplicably awful movie in this series. I can’t even imagine.