Actually there can be four. That is if we are counting film in the Highlander series. And I am only counting the ones with Christopher Lambert. And that is not to mention a very successful television series. But I digress.
Sometimes I look back at a film on my Netflix Queue and wonder why I added it. Both my Instant and Mail queue have over 150 titles in them. At the rate I am going now if I add a movie to the bottom of my queue and I don't shuffle it around I probably won't watch it for at least 18 months. Maybe more. But that is not the case with Highlander. I put it in my queue because I remember my father loving everything Highlander. And I remember enjoying them in my youth. As with many things there is a nostalgia factor that has a tendency to make thing from our past seem almost sacred. I wanted to see if Highlander was one of these "great then" movies.
And it really is. I went into this movie wanting to reconnect with it and I just couldn't do it. That is not to say there aren't any good moments. Because there are. There are actually quite a few very well shot and creative scenes. Unfortunately for every inspired scene, there are 2 or 3 that are really bad. By bad I mean they look cheap, they make no sense for the story, they are terribly dated, and they are unintentionally funny. I will give examples of each.
First off the thing I remember most (other than the tag line which I have heard my dad say thousands of times) is Sean Connery. What I didn't remember is what he is doing in the movie. Now I know why I didn't remember that. First reason is that I think my brain blocked out that he is dressed like a gay caballero. Second reason I don't remember him is that the only reason that he is in the film is to inform Macleod (and teh viewers) what the movie is all about. Up until this point, which is about 30 minutes in, there is no logic as to why we have been bouncing back and forth between the present (1980's) and several hundreds of years ago. Connery only job is to provide exposition while training Macleod on how to sword fight.
Then there is the unavoidable training montage. This montage and the entire movie is enhanced by a Queen soundtrack that is like a pair of assless chaps to the face. It is power cords and stadium rock turned up to 11. The sword work and training mostly takes place on mountain tops using a camera equip helicopter to circle around and film two stunt men very slowly (as to not fall off the mountain) hitting their swords against one another. The more I type this the more homoerotic I realize this film to be. I guess I should mention that Macleod is a single antiques dealer in the modern world too.
In a scene where the baddie fights Connery there is a horribly filmed sequence with Styrofoam blocks representing huge limestone bricks. The scene looks like something right out of the He Man live action movie, and that is not a compliment. There is an scene at the end of the movie where animation is used (presumably because they couldn't afford CGI {keep in mind that Terminator was made 2 years earlier}) and it looks terrible. Not to mention that you can clearly see the wires that are holding Macleod up. And why the crap do they have a Scottish born Sean Connery playing a Spaniard in a movie about Scottish folklore? And why is he carrying a samurai sword!?!
Now for some positive things. The previous scene mentioned at the end of the film has a great shot of a blue back lit wall of windows shattering. That was a good effect. There were other well made and cleverly shot scenes. In the opening sequence we are at a professional wrestling match (not helping to dispel my homosexual undertones theory) and there is a crane shot that I was wildly impressed with.
The problem with this movie is that it takes a shot like that in a very cool intro and then moves onto an old man doing backflips in a parking garage for no reason at all. He is in a battle with Macleod, but three different times they have him doing series of backflips with no sign of any present danger. I am always complaining about movies that try to rely on their CGI instead of telling a story. Highlander has a decent story, but they added a bunch of stupid crap that totally took me out of the movie. Example:
Connery just shows up on Macleod's doorstep. The whole thing about being a Highlander is that you have to kill all the other highlanders. Hence "There can be only one". But Connery just decided that Macleod is a cool Dude so he is going to mentor him. They give no reason for that at all. Then in Connery's big epic battle Macleod is no where to be found. Then Macleod's wife get buried in rubble, then we are told the baddie rapped her. But we have no evidence to reason to believe that it happened. Weak and lazy writing.
My final scene is that when the baddie meets Macleod in the church Macleod is ready to fight him right then but he doesn't want to. Then in the next scene he is trying to find Macleod to fight. There are a lot of things in this movie that you have to just go with the flow. Too many for my liking. But anyway, as the baddie is leaving the church he proclaims "It's better to burn out than to fade away". Then he claps his hands together, spins around in a circle Michael Jackson style, and throws up his thumbs and index fingers in "the guns" pose. I can't think of a cheesier moment in cinema history.
To be honest I did enjoy watching this movie. But more for is flaws than its skill. This film has all the making of a cult classic. I can see me getting a group of guys together and watching this movie and making fun of it. Wow, that last line is sorta gay. I give Highlander ★★.
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