REVIEW: Highlander 2 (1990)

This sequel to the 80s bastion of moldy cheese that was Highlander is reviled by many fans of the original movie for reasons that...well, let’s be honest, the reasons why people hate this sequel become apparent about a minute and a half into the movie. Maybe even before that. But is it really one of the worst sequels of all time? Is it really such a travesty? Well, why don’t we do that thing I always do and figure it out together?!

Director: Russel Mulcahy

Starring: Christopher Lambert, Virginia Madsen, Sean Connery, Michael Ironside

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102034/

So before we even get to the actual film, how about the Netflix envelope? This movie is so half-assed and confusing that even the envelope it comes in from a movie rental service is apologizing for it, admitting that it is so stupid that nobody could for even one second find it credible. These are the words, printed verbatim from the outside package, that come with Highlander 2: “This sequel to the cult sci-fi action film largely discards the original’s premise of mysterious immortal swordsmen, revealing Connor McLeod and Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez to be long-lived aliens.”

Yeah, “largely discards the original’s premise.” As if they’re just warning you not to rent this crap! And yes, this is real; the Highlanders are aliens, complete with a plot about what amounts to saving the world from global warming. Are we still in the same universe? How does this have ANYTHING to do with Highlander? And it’s by the same director as the first one?!? Did he just get a surprise back-alley lobotomy in between films? There’s only a three year difference! What the hell happened? Well, I guess we’ll never find out if we just sit around bitching about it all afternoon.

The film begins with a text scroll explaining that the ozone layer just mysteriously deteriorated so much by the year 1990 something that scientists had to construct a “shield” to protect humanity from radiation poisoning, which eventually backfired and almost entirely eclipsed the sun. Now an evil corporation controls the “shield” and uses it to blackmail the public. Yeah, sounds like Highlander to me, too! I guess this could be a good plot for an entirely different movie, but for a Highlander sequel…this is just out of left field.

And remember how the last movie started with a wrestling match flashing back to medieval Scotland? Well, this movie starts out with an opera:

…and then flashes back to the warlike planet Mars as alien tribes ready themselves for battle! And no I swear I am not making this up:

Yeah, apparently the Netflix envelope was telling the truth – Connor McLeod (Christopher Lambert) and…well, Sean Connery, since let’s face it, none of you are going to call him by his character name…are aliens in some space war, captured by this alien warlord Highlander guy named Katana. This character is played very poorly by Michael Ironside, a great actor stooping to an almost unheard of low by acting in this dreck. He banishes McLeod and Connery to Earth, where the events of the first movie transpire over hundreds of years.

…you know, there are just some things that remained better unexplained. Honestly, who ever thought the story of the first Highlander involved aliens from Mars? Nobody, because IT’S A DAMN TERRIBLE IDEA. It’s like pretending the story behind Michael Myers from Halloween involves ancient voodoo rituals and Pagan crap…oh, wait. Carry on, then.

So McLeod, apparently, became mortal for some reason after the events of the first movie and before the whole “shield” debacle started. He is living out his days as a crusty old man with just about the silliest old-man voice imaginable. I don’t really have a sound clip, but seriously, just picture the goofiest old man you ever heard in a Nickelodeon cartoon – McLeod is worse. It’s a really bad sign when I can’t take the MAIN CHARACTER OF YOUR MOVIE seriously for even one damn second.

I'm just a doddering old fool! I should probably be in a nursing home, but hell, it's the future! We've outgrown those primitive institutions. So now I just walk the streets getting harasseed by everyone.

But it’s OK, because Michael Ironside is ready to one-up this ridiculousness as he commands his two BDSM Cenobite minions to go and kill McLeod. They point out that he is so old that he will die on his own soon anyway, but since we wouldn’t have a movie in that case, Ironside rejects that sensible idea and tells them to go to the future and kill him anyway. Hooray for illogical decisions!

Ha ha ha...they look like something Tim Burton would dress his kids up as for Halloween. Edward Scissorhands-lite.

They attack him and he fights them off really well for an old coot, and then he even turns back to his younger immortal self, because the two goons messed with the time stream or something. Now, this begs the question…if they can just go anywhere in time, why not just go back to when they first put him on Earth and cut his head off before he awakened his powers that first time? Or why not just go back to when they had him enslaved at first and kill him while he was bound in chains? Oh, wait, because then we wouldn’t have a movie. Silly me!

Is he really riding on flying shoes? Seriously? That's really lame...I don't even have any other jokes.

Also, I’m SO GLAD Ironside sent his two goons back to kill McLeod thus bringing him back to his younger and more powerful state! This guy is a GENIUS!

To distract you from the stupidity of the movie, we then see McLeod having hot steamy sex with a woman he doesn’t even know, the head of some kind of terrorist organization that was only written into the script as an afterthought:

I really can’t even describe how strange this scene is – not with just still pictures. She confronts him after his fight with the two goons and asks what happened, and then he…hypnotizes her, I guess, to start making out and screwing him right there on the spot. It’s less “sexy” and more “incredibly uncomfortable and creepy.” Mostly just makes you feel like you need a shower.

But if THAT wasn’t ludicrous enough for you, apparently McLeod can bring back the dead Sean Connery by just…shouting his name at the sky, as he returns like he never got killed by The Kurgan in the flashbacks of the first movie. He interrupts a performance of Hamlet and doesn’t seem to realize it’s a show:

Truly how Shakespeare was meant to be performed, with the added inclusion of a buffoon who has a Scottish accent but whose character and name are supposed to be Spanish.

So they just never had minstrel shows or anything in old Scotland, then? I’m calling bullshit on that. But it does give us a stale and unfunny attempt at a comedic scene, which is pretty much all you’ll be getting from Connery for the entire film. Oh, he’s confused and doesn’t understand modern slang and technology? HOW INVENTIVE AND GENIUS! Great comedy! Well, about as funny as my grandma’s leftover spinach from three weeks ago.

And then we see Michael Ironside’s grand entrance to Earth as he just falls from the sky and crashes right through a subway train moving by:


I didn't have space in the review itself, but there's a part where he goes up to someone on the train and says "We're not in Kansas anymore," or something like that. How does he know that reference? Bad 90s writing of course! Man I need a drink. Of the alcoholic persuasion.

Okay, for one, how did he not do that more elegantly? Nobody else we’ve seen teleporting in the movie is that clumsy – hell, even Ironside’s minions did it better! And two, if he had the ability to do this, WHY DIDN’T HE JUST DO THIS FIRST INSTEAD OF LETTING HIS MINIONS DO IT? Oh yeah, because there would be no movie that way! Silly me!

So Ironside goes on a joy ride with the train in which he tries, and fails miserably, to reach the hammy heights of the Kurgan from the last movie. He’s pretty silly, yeah, but you just can’t beat a big muscular bald guy sitting in a church and making faces at the preachers. Or a crazy after-dark ride with an old lady. But I digress – the main reason Ironside pretty much sucks is because after his joy ride, in which he kills pretty much every passenger of the train, he opens the door looking all frazzled like a cartoon character and says “Last stop?”

Seriously, this shit is like Wile E. Coyote written by people with no grasp of comedy. IT’S AWFUL.

Oh, what’s that? You want more garbage comedy attempts puked out of the collective depths of the writers’ bowels? Well, how about like three different scenes of Sean Connery on a plane with the subtitle “Somewhere over the Atlantic” – which makes no sense seeing as it should only take him a few hours, and yet at least a day’s worth of events happens in the movie’s time and he still isn’t there – making chit chat with the passengers and flirting creepily with women?

She was paid a lot of money to laugh at Connery in this movie...

I also really love the future's airline etiquette: they don't show the safety video that tells you to buckle your seatbelt and that your seat can be used as a floatation device until NOW. Yeah, they wouldn't show it before the plane took off - they'd wait until the plane was "somewhere over the Atlantic" to inform the passengers of what to do in case of an emergency!

Yes, to keep the passengers as calm as possible, this airline shows a video of people panicking and the plane crashing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLIGHT. Gee. I didn't know United Airways went downhill so much in the future!

So McLeod goes to visit this old professor friend of his who helped him back in the day with that shield thing that stopped the ozone from killing everyone. The weirdest part is that the friend doesn’t realize that McLeod has de-aged. He just thinks McLeod “got a face job” or something…how is this guy a scientist again? I wouldn’t trust him to bag my groceries.

But apparently the government doesn’t trust him either, as they have him arrested and thrown in jail for possibly knowing that there could be clean unpolluted air outside the shield, and the exact coordinates at which one can find it. McLeod, however, is busy fighting Ironside, although the fight is not actually resolved so much as just…temporarily stopped. The movie then fades into McLeod’s new love interest sleeping – I really don’t think transitioning from a fight scene into someone sleeping is a good way to get your audience hooked.

McLeod finally meets up with Connery again after the longest plane ride in history. The two take the love interest chick and run off to save the world! They find Mr. Unreliable Scientist Friend and tell him everything is OK, and then he just dies right there, like his life’s purpose is complete. How sad…? No, sorry, I really can’t get emotionally invested in any of this. If it seems like I’m rushing this review, I am – there’s too much to talk about and not enough space to do so.

So some more really boring sword fight scenes – like you have no idea how boring these things are – McLeod and Connery make it through the maze. Connery sacrifices his life for no reason. McLeod and Ironside finally square off right by the generator machine, and Ironside is beheaded in typical Highlander fashion. Connery’s voice narrates from beyond the grave somehow and says they must work together to destroy the shield and break down the walls under the sky.

Now, keep in mind, this generator thing has been BUILT UP TO ALL HELL before this scene, with everyone saying it was impossible to get to and acting like it was completely impenetrable. So HOW does McLeod finally beat it? Get ready for the most exciting, nail-biting, ground-breaking, intense scene to EVER…yeah, he just walks in and then the shield is destroyed:

What the---?! How---?! Why---?! Oh, screw it, there was no thought put into this, so I’m not going to waste my time. He seriously just…walks in and everything is fine. That’s how easy it was the whole time to return the Earth to normal! How did the ozone layer just randomly return itself to its normal state and make the air habitable again? Who cares, the movie is over! I’m happy with that as it is!

This movie was stupid. Everything was so convoluted and such a mess that the film just collapsed under its own weight. This series isn’t that complicated, guys! It’s immortal swordsmen duking it out until only one remains. How did all of this bullshit about aliens from Mars and global warming and the ozone layer get filtered into the mix? Not to mention the awful “comedy” from Sean Connery and Michael Ironside and the contrived romance, along with the terrible special effects - pretty sure even the first movie had better special effects than the ones here.

It’s really no wonder that future Highlander sequels disregard this film entirely as part of the series canon, and that almost every fan hates it with a passion. I won’t say it’s absolutely unsalvageable, as there are a few good ideas here and there (I kind of like the whole idea that McLeod tried to save the world but ended up backfiring with the shield, causing everyone to hate him), but the haphazard way the story is put together as well as the numerous plot holes just makes it too much to bear. Highlander 2 is a dud.

What’s that? You want me to review a sequel that is equally, if not more so, horrible, that people actually LIKE? Well, okay then. See you next week!

TO BE CONTINUED…

DISCLAIMER: I have nothing against United Airways.
DISCLAIMER 2: The pictures in this review do not belong to me. They are copyright of their original owners.

REVIEW: Highlander (1986)

This review was co-written with Colin and Clayton. Thanks, guys.

There are bad movies like…well, almost everything I give detailed, long reviews on this site…and then there are just campy movies. These are the movies that just do so many goofy things and go so over the top that you can’t help but laugh – all the way through the movie. They’re bad, but they’re bad in a fun way! Everyone knows ‘em and everyone loves ‘em. And one prime example of this phenomenon is Highlander, revered the world over and even the starter of a huge franchise including 4 more movies after it and a TV series, even. That’s a lot of praise. It’s kind of like giving Killer Klowns from Outer Space its own franchise, only this movie makes THAT one look positively tame in comparison! Is Highlander really as good as everyone says it is, or is it just a big ol’ flop? Let’s find out.

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Starring: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/

The movie begins in the simpler times when boys and girls had the same goofy mullet haircuts and wrestlers with hairy chests brought in huge crowds with their neon spandex – the 80s! Yes, that glorious time…but we’re focusing on a very serious looking guy in a rape trench coat who feels like he has to go out into the parking lot and get into a sword fight with one of the rejected Mr. Smiths from The Matrix. Don’t we all have those impulses?

Can you see why they rejected him for Mr. Smith? Not exactly the picture of athletic health there...but he was good enough for this movie's randomness!

So after cutting off the guy’s head, he goes and sits back down in the fight, and then we get a sudden flashback to medieval Scotland! Do you think that doesn’t make sense? Well then you’re an idiot; it makes perfect sense! No, seriously; this just comes out of nowhere! Were they high or something making this? Don’t answer that…it was a rhetorical question.

Apparently the story here is that McLeod, a respected soldier in the army, and they get into a fight with a guy who looks like a rejected He-Man villain, in which McLeod is killed.

We then flash back to present-day times where Mr. Rape Trench Coat, or McLeod again (confused yet?), is being arrested for cutting off the guy’s head. They interrogate him at the police station and they have his weapon and know he was at the crime scene, and he even assaults them in the interrogation room, so what do they do? Let him go a few minutes later of course. No point in looking up his records, keeping him on the charges of assaulting an officer or interrogating him for longer than a few minutes, right? Best. Cops. Ever.

Some more poorly cut-and-pasted flashbacks reveal that McLeod came back from the dead somehow and shocked everyone in his village, who shunned him and threw him out, intending to kill him. They tie him up and are about to get rid of him when one of his old buddies has a change of heart and somehow lets him go…although he still didn’t have the sense to untie him, I guess. Some friend there. But I guess you really can’t have your cake and eat it too.

In the present times, McLeod is followed by some kind of police officer/archaeologist (how does that work again?) who I will describe as the most generic 80s movie chick ever. Seriously, she’s got the curly, poofy hair. She’s got the rebellious, nosy attitude that’s going to lead her to trouble later. She’s got the spunky, no-nonsense relationship with the main character that she dislikes at first. Could she be any more generic? Might as well just give her a name like…I don’t know, Julie, or Brenda or something.

What’s that? Her name IS Brenda? Well…I rest my case. So for some reason, McLeod follows her to the crime scene where she’s investigating for the second time, and then he approaches her in a bar and acts creepy and weird. So of course she accuses him of stalking her and then storms off angrily! But when he goes into the alleyway and gets attacked by what I can only describe as the bastard son of Shredder from Ninja Turtles, Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget and a horrible BDSM fetish all rolled up into the goofiest villain you’ll ever see:

So after that’s over, we see that Brenda has followed McLeod into the alley despite everything she said before about stalking being bad. Friggin’ double standards. They make a date at her apartment and I guess everything is peachy, so it’s time for another flashback!

We get to see that McLeod is now living idly in the mountains with his new wife, who he probably neglected to tell about the whole coming back from the dead thing. I so love relationships built on not telling your partner the whole truth! They’re having sex in the middle of a field when they’re interrupted by…

Oh, God, no. You can’t just…throw this at us, movie. It’s Sean Connery in a flamboyant outfit that looks like something out of a period-piece porno flick or something. But to be fair, it IS Sean Connery, and as expected, he makes the role completely awesome in every way. He’s just a great actor, with tons of charisma and verve to him. But there is that small problem of him playing a Spaniard character and then speaking in an unabashed Scottish accent. But I guess it makes as much sense as anything else in the movie…

Anyway, it turns out the big story behind this whole ordeal is that McLeod is immortal, and was born into a sort of eternal battle, in which he has to train for in order to be ‘the one.’ That's the big line this movie popularized - "There can be only one!" I have to admit it's pretty epic. There’s something called ‘the Quickening’ that is prophesized to happen, apparently, in the 80s, which is appropriate because that’s when this movie was made! What a coincidence! So Connery trains McLeod for a long time and they run barefoot on the beach like a medieval Hallmark card, and it’s all good.

I want to spar with Sean Connery's stunt double too!

This is so happy that NOTHING could ever go wrong, right?!

Back in the present time, we get McLeod’s ‘date’ with Brenda, and…I’m not gonna lie, it’s one of the simultaneously BEST and WORST scenes in any movie you’ll ever watch. This is so cheesy it ought to be radioactive, and I’m going to have to don my special Hazmat suit and go into bullet points for a play-by-play…brace yourselves, folks! Brace yourselves!

So he comes over and stands in the doorway with a smile that says quite loudly ‘I’m going to murder you in a back alley someday.’ She lets him in and then goes and talks to her mirror to see if she can divine an explanation for how weird he is. He finds a gun in her apartment and responds with the proper facial expression:

Then he pours some wine and starts to randomly talk about how great the 1700s were, because that’s not weird at all, and he tells her the date that America’s independence was officially recognized by England, being that he was actually there and all. She acts surprised…weird, considering that she’s a history buff. Did she really not know that?

Then it’s revealed that McLeod knew all along that Brenda was just trying to play him to see if he was guilty or not. She then tells him that she just needs the sword to make an important historical discovery, to which he angrily responds ‘Don’t you ever think about anything but what you want?’

Uh…what? I’m sorry; did he read that line correctly? Why is he saying that like they’ve known each other for years? How is wanting to do something for one’s career “not thinking about what anyone else wants”? Isn’t it actually incredibly important to make such archaeological finds? There are too many questions for such a short scene! Movie, learn how to write dialogue better!

After that it’s flashback time again, as we venture into the darkest day of them all…Sean Connery and McLeod’s wife are sitting around in the house when they’re attacked by Mr. 80s Leather and Spandex, although here he’s just Mr. He-Man Villain instead. Long story short, he kills Sean Connery, rapes McLeod’s wife and McLeod himself is…fishing happily on the greener grass on the other side of the field, because apparently the destroyed castle and lightning striking don’t alert him at all.

McLeod must have been doing something VERY IMPORTANT to miss this...like filing his nails...okay, there's no friggin' excuse for this.

What an oblivious dolt.

In the present time, McLeod meets up with his old buddy…this black guy:

"So...I used to own you. Damn Civil Rights movements."
"Don't push it."

In flashback land, we see that McLeod once got drunk in the 1700s and fought a snooty British lord, who subsequently, shot his own assistant. Why? I dunno, no reason really. It serves no purpose at all, but hey, it padded out the length of this bloated DVD reissue some more!

Then in the real world again, Mr. 80s Leather and Spandex takes time out of his day to intimidate the hotel manager where he’s staying, but not enough time to show us the whole fight scene with McLeod’s black buddy. Yup, we only get to see the final couple of minutes of it! Joyous. Because, yeah, that whole scene with the 1700s American Revolution thing…THAT was worth keeping in the movie, but the potentially interesting fight scene? Nah, scrap it! It’s not important at all.

Then Mr. 80s Leather and Spandex takes a joyride with Grandma!

Clearly this was his mission all along - all that other stuff about killing and cutting off heads? Just collateral damage. Rides with old ladies are what he really lived for all along! He's only been a shell of a man until now!

Can this be any sillier? Also, where the hell are the cops? I guess they have enough manpower to interview the victims of tragedies that already happened, like when they interview the guy that Mr. 80s Leather and Spandex plowed into a wall earlier, but not enough manpower to actually stop a crime. Best. Cops. Ever.

Then in flashback land again, we see that McLeod’s wife played with puppies in the meadows, and that caused her to grow old and be sick in bed, where she makes him promise to light a candle for her on her birthday every year for the rest of his life, or else SHE’LL HAUNT HIM FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. Well, okay, that last part might not be true.

In the present day, McLeod is at a church and Mr. 80s Leather and Spandex arrives with a shaved head, looking even more ridiculous and silly than he did before. He says it’s to disguise himself from the cops, who know what he looks like now, but if that’s the case, why is he being so loud and over the top? He makes faces at the clergy, laughs maniacally and sticks his tongue out like he’s a lost member of KISS. HOW IS THIS HIDING FROM THE COPS? YOU’RE A MORON, MR. 80S LEATHER AND SPANDEX. How did he even survive this long? He’s as subtle and tactical as a goddamn wrecking ball!

This guy is clearly the next genius of our times.

So he kidnaps Brenda and ties her to a big billboard while he and McLeod fight to the death. They used up all their money on these special effects of a big tidal wave hitting the building, so the final fight is relegated to standing in front of a warehouse window. Then McLeod finally kills off 80s Leather and Spandex and becomes the only one to be struck by lightning:

All the glowing Tic Tacs flow into him like a river...

There’s some narration that tells us he now knows all things, is everywhere, and can read everyone’s minds – so basically, he’s become The Internet! Yes, about 15 years before it became a household item, Christopher Lambert in Highlander was the internet. What a revelation! And that’s the end of the movie. What a trip.

Man, this was cheesy. It’s so cheesy it ought to come with a warning for people who are lactose intolerant! And I love the hell out of it. Highlander, for all its ridiculousness and nonsense, is a pretty awesome movie that makes no sense and has a ton of fun boasting about that fact. It takes itself in stride and struts its overly silly plot like it’s the most epic, serious, groundbreaking thing anyone has ever seen, and for that it is a lot of fun. This is a real product of its environment, born out of the dusty depths of the 80s, and while it is incredibly dated, it’s also remarkably fun to watch and contains a real epic, heartfelt story as well. So go check it out if you haven’t; it’s a great flick.

All images copyright of their original owners.