I saw it once in 1990 but remembered essentially nothing about it, so when I noticed that TiVo had recorded it as a suggestion my husband and I watched it.
What the fuck. It was so bad! And how did they manage to make multiple sequels and a tv show?
Highlander is a classic because the concept is just flatout balls-to-the-wall amazing.
I mean a group of immortals, who don’t know they are immortals until they die, compete in a centuries long tournament to be the last one standing by chopping off each other’s heads.
That is just fucking brilliant!
ETA: I’ve only seen the first movie and a smattering of TV series episodes, but I agree with you, the actual execution leaves a lot to be desired.
I’m with the OP. It’s a crap movie. It’s funny to me that people hate Highlander 2 so much when the first Highlander isn’t fit for much more than MST3k fodder.
Though Clancy Brown is made of awesome and redeems the whole thing.
It also has a pretty decent soundtrack to go along with the concept. The acting is generally abysmal, but hey, it’s Sean Connery as an Egyptian!
The first movie is actually pretty well done imo. Neat cinematography, amazing soundtrack of mostly original Queen songs, reasonably clever treatment of a bizarre premise.
The sequels were bad because a) they didn’t have the good music (in fact, I don’t think there is any original music in 2); b) the original movie didn’t leave room for them (Nash/MacLeod wins the prize & gains divine power, the end); & c) they were badly done in various ways as I state below.
The sequels do serve a purpose, however, as textbook cases of how not to do sequels.
2 has atrocious production values, lacks the musical sensibility of the first, & its future setting looks like a poor man’s Blade Runner.
3 rips off the plot of the first but with less subtlety, pisses all over the resolution of the first at the same time, & tries to use phrases from the first to say, “Look what big fans we are.” Bad fanfic before that was a common term.
4 follows on the continuity of the later TV series & pisses off the movie series fans. Also introduces several interesting characters only to suddenly kill them off at once almost offscreen.
Haven’t seen 5.
Agreed, and I’ve had the same level of exposure to the franchise.
Sometimes I think about how much better The Highlander would be if it were written by a world history professor who was also a great storyteller. It needs that level of sophistication to tap into what should be informative, interesting international stories from the last 1000 years that usually end in a sword fight and beheading.
Not really…he is awesome - I’m not sure he’s capable of not being awesome - but even he can’t redeem the whole thing.
The two main characters are a Scot with a French accent and an Egyptian-born Spaniard with a Scottish accent (well, at least Lambert seemed to have made an attempt at doing the right accent, he just wasn’t very good at it - Connery has no such excuse). That, alone, dooms the damn thing to failure. Lambert’s bad accent could be forgiven if Connery hadn’t been cast - but they did, so Lambert’s accent-fail is highlighted and compounded by Connery’s.
Having Sean ‘Scotland Forever!’ Connery insult haggis was, like Brown’s performance, almost worth it, but…
The soundtrack was good, but a good soundtrack makes for a good album, not a good movie.
I think you are putting the bar way too high. Highlander is a lot of fun. It’s basically a B-movie with a barely-above-shoestring budget. It’s a fantastic premise and does a lot with very, very little.
Highlander isn’t a classic, To Kill A Mockingbird is a classic. Highlander’s a cult film.
Connery annunciates everything in a Edinburgh burr, including when he’s playing an Irish cop (The Untouchables) or a Russian naval captain (The Hunt for Red October).
One should note that Highlander isn’t a classic in the sense of Rear Window, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, i.e. well crafted and compelling; it is a cult classic, coming out at a time in which fantasy films were at a low point, and therefore being fondly remembered as unique and interesting, no doubt assisted by Freddy Mercury’s power ballads. It is definitely just a step above MST3K material, and today would be just another SyFy crapfest.
However mediocre it may be, though, the second one was far, far worse. It wasn’t just a bad film; it wasn’t even just a nonsensical film. It was an absurdly, badly, incomprehensibly unnecessary movie that tacked on a science fiction element not even hinted at in the original for no purpose whatsoever. And then it brought in a “That Guy”, Michael Ironside, who is like the anti-Michael Caine. (Michael Caine is the guy you hire if your film is kind-of shit and you want to make it seem better than it is; Michael Ironside is the guy you hire because your film is totally shit and you hope that by making it even worse it’ll fall into the “so bad it’s good” category.) The one with Mario Van Peebles…well, when has he ever made a film that was improved by his presence?
Stranger
I was impressed by the transitions, which were unique or at least unusual at the time.
I never understood the appreciation either.
I was a teenager when it came out, and I remember all the expectations surrounding it among my friends. (Teens and young men were probably the core of the target audience.)
When I finally got around to watching it (one of those VHS player and five movies for a weekend deals) I was very unimpressed.
I didn’t hate it, but it certainly didn’t live up to the hype.
At the time, it was a unique concept for an action film, and for that alone it stood out amongst the dross of 1986. Though the accent thing was hard to get past first time around.
But now it is severely dated, and the sequels make a mockery of the concept of there being “only one,” so it all looks a bit sillier now than it did at the time.
I don’t think people consider it a classic…just a pretty good movie.
I’m surprised you didn’t like it. It’s well done.
Sure you didn’t catch one of the horrible sequels?
I think I probably would have liked it more if I’d seen it when I was 12-14 years old. But instead I rented it when I was in university and I was rather underwhelmed.
I grew up watching it, and that’s probably part of the mystique for a lot of people. Hell, a lot of the stuff I grew up watching I’d probably think was terrible if I didn’t remember it through a child’s eyes.
I’d agree that it’s not terribly well done, it’s definitely a B movie, but tons of B movies have become cult classics and spawned countless sequels. Like others said, despite the relatively poor production, it has a unique premise that left itself open to lots of potential (ignoring the whole prize part essentially ending it) and had a wonderful soundtrack. It’s amazing to me that with such a premise they managed to screw the sequels so badly, but the series was pretty decent, which I think help cement the original film as a cult classic.
The concept of Highlander IS awesome, and the series exploited it much better than the film(s) did. The film used the concept as a pretext and burnt it to the ground right at the end, so fucking stupid.
But the concept is still very very good, swordfights, flashbacks around at the world at the most interesting crossroads of history (or the most delightfully obscure ones), and swordfights. What I dont understand is why no one has tried to yank the control of the license from the actual producers (shouldnt be that expensive now), put some good money on it and restart the franchise from scatch, this time with a possible plan for a well thought out franchise.
The concept is the star of Highlander, it hasnt lost its good looks over the years.
A remake/reboot has been in the works from almost the second filming on Highlander: The Source ended.
There’s a lot of good souls in Development Hell.
Maybe. I actually think the end is part of the original’s appeal. MacLeod gains godhood, so he makes himself human.