Directed by: Russell Mulcahy
Written by: Peter Bellwood, Brian Clemens, William N. Panzer
Starring: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen
IMDb Link
The original Highlander is a film that isn't particularly amazing, but played its premise in a campy-yet-hammy enough manner that it has become a cult hit over time. The idea (immortals duking it out for undefined ultimate power) is just a good enough mixture of cool and silly for the film to have niche appeal. However, the story structure ultimately left no real room for a sequel; the plot ends with the last immortal killing his final foe, being given great power, and becoming mortal so that he can finally grow old and have children with someone. It's tied up in a neat little bow of catharsis for the main character, and there should be nothing else to tell afterwards. Somehow, people found a way.
Highlander II has almost the opposite problem to Troll 2; where the latter has absolutely nothing to do with its predecessor because it isn't actually a sequel, Highlander II relies too heavily on people having seen the first one to be understandable, while also destroying everything that made the original enjoyable in the first place, at least as far as plot/premise are concerned.
From the outset the entire first movie is retconned. While the first is about immortals who absorb each other's strength by killing each other, all fighting to become the only immortal left so that they may receive an unknown 'Prize', Highlander II essentially tells the audience to forget the first movie by having Ramirez (Connery, playing a Spaniard, but with his usual Scottish accent) who, by the way, died in the first film, tell our main character MacLeod to remember instead that they aren't immortals. According to this film, they are in fact aliens from the planet Zeist, rebels against the ruling of General Katana (Michael Ironside, God bless him), who were sent to Earth as punishment for their crimes, and the prize isn't mortality and great knowledge, but a choice between mortality and returning to their home planet. As if this weren't complicated enough, they are 'sent to the future' as part of their punishment, so there's a nonsensical time travel element that adds nothing to the story because nothing is ever really done with it. The film's plot relies heavily on knowing who MacLeod and Ramirez are, but completely negates their challenges and suffering from the first film. On top of this, there's a dystopian flavour added to the story; the year is 2024, the world's ozone has burnt out and been replaced with an artificial shield, which leaves the world in constant night. MacLeod's wife dies prior to the placement of the shield due to unfiltered sunlight, as did many others. It's all so incredibly convoluted an unnecessary. What's more, this is just the set-up; the film hasn't even properly gotten started and there's already a dozen plates to spin. Honestly, the writers must have just put a bunch of sci-fi tropes into a hat and went with the first two they pulled out, that's the only explanation I can think of for why the story is structured the way it is.
At some point in the production, I think the filmmakers realised how silly what they were making was, because there's a few scenes of sheer absurdity that don't mesh at all with the rest of the film's tone, but are so completely out of left field that each of them are way more entertaining than the rest of the film's annoyingly serious style. One of these involve Connery's Ramirez, another Ironside's Katana. Ramirez certainly makes an impression on his return; despite dying in the first film, he is revived somehow, and instead of going straight to MacLeod, he first stops by a tailor to get a new suit, for no apparent reason other than that he wants to. The whole thing is such an odd waste of time, but is also sped through for the sake of "comedy" I guess, so we're left with a scene that doesn't really do anything to move the story forward and is completely unnecessary, but only exists for a few minutes. It's so... strange, there's no other word for it. As for Katana, his first moments on Earth are explosive. He appears on a train, and quickly proceeds to run said train up to its maximum speed until it comes crashing off the rails, killing everyone but himself. It's probably the funniest scene in the movie, made perfectly, stupidly hilarious by Ironside's incredibly hammy, maniacal and over the top performance, as well as a some metal from the soundtrack that comes out of nowhere and doesn't match any of the music used previously or afterwards. These moments were enough to make the movie almost bearable; if you decide to sit down and watch the movie, you could blur your eyes and mute the tv until these scenes show up, and only actually pay attention to these few moments before going back to not paying attention, and maybe you could convince yourself that the movie was ok.
The Verdict: Highlander II is a sequel nobody wanted to a film almost no-one saw until it became a cult hit. and the film deviates so much from the source material that it's long been de-canonised and barely talked about because of how awful and silly it is. While later versions have tried to make the best of a bad lot, the film is still a pile of slightly more coherent garbage, with enough moments that leave you stunned (especially if you've seen the first) to almost make it worth watching just to see how awful it is.
Rating: This is a bit tricky, because the film is so silly that if you refuse to take it in any way seriously it's actually somewhat entertaining, but if you take any funny moment and interpret as the film trying to be cool, then it fails completely. I suppose a 1/10 is most appropriate, since this film ultimately offers nothing of value past a few unintentional chuckles, but part of me wants to give it a 1.5 just because the makers of this film apparently had the balls and none of the brains to try and make this work, the film really is the most nonsensical idea for a sequel to a film that shouldn't have had one. Overall, I'll stick with my original rating of 1/10.
Published February 17th, 2017
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