Review LIV
Highlander (1986)
I don't have an anecdote for Russell Mulcahy's Highlander starring Christophe Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, and Roxanne Hart. I heard that the sequel to this film is the epitome of the devil and it should never be mentioned (which is why I have refrained from linking it here), but other than that, I haven't heard much about this one. I heard it was good, but that was from one person. Time for me to review it!
Russell Nash (played by Christophe Lambert) is seen walking around New York City when he is suddenly jumped by a man wielding a sword in an underground garage. After a slightly lengthy battle, Russell Nash manages to cut off the man's head. If that wasn't enough, suddenly strong electrical currents are passing through the air and cars are exploding. This doesn't go unnoticed by the police, and Russell Nash is soon arrested. The film cuts back to the 16th century in the Scottish highlands where we discover who Russell Nash really is - Connor MacLeod, a highlander. He is an immortal, and we learn through Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez (Sean Connery), an Egpytian immortal, that the immortals will one day have to fight each other, kill each other (done by slicing the head off the body), and when one sole immortal remains, he will receive a prize. This is called the Gathering. When an immortal kills another immortal, a powerful amount of energy is released (as seen with the garage scene) - this is called the Quickening. While neither knows what the prize is, Ramirez warns that it must not fall into the evil hands of the Kurgan (Clancy Brown), or it could lead to devasting consequences.
I can't provide any explanations as to where the immortals came from, why they exist, or what their purpose is (besides killing each other for a prize) because it is not explained in the film. This bothered me considering the plot revolves around the immortals and the Gathering. If you don't explain this, you're just throwing everything out the window. Then you have Ramirez coming to train MacLeod, and why? I mean, we know that Ramirez doesn't want this prize falling into the wrong hands, but why does he choose to train MacLeod? Why doesn't he just kill him off and save himself? Or if he believes he needs someone to remain in case he dies, again, why MacLeod? I mean, how many immortals are on the Earth, anyway? Is that why Ramirez choose MacLeod? That might explain why MacLeod goes hundreds of years without fighting a single immortal, or so I'm going to assume because we only ever see him fight them in the 20th century. How does Ramirez know about the immortal creed and all, because obviously it isn't something you just know because MacLeod didn't know anything about the immortals until he was exiled from his clan for being an immortal. And even then, he didn't know all the rules that accompany with having immortal status. Does that mean most immortals go their whole lives not knowing anything about this Gathering and are promptly killed by another immortal, or just continue to live forever in ignorance? Which begs another question - MacLeod stays a late-twenties-, early-thirties-looking man in the film. Why does he stop at that age? Ramirez definitely looks older than MacLeod, so does it just change depending on who you are? Does your will drive what age you will live to? Okay, seriously, I could go on for so much longer with these questions, but I mean, this is ridiculous. The film explains essentially nothing about the immortals. It provides the rules, but excludes all explanations. The explanations are the places you get to let your imagination run when you are a script writer. I don't understand why the writers thought it would be a good idea to exclude all this. I was trying to enjoy the movie, but all these questions kept popping up. It was ridiculous.
... Alright, assuming I just decided to play ignorant, I suppose I could say the plot was alright. I mean, besides the fact that Connor MacLeod does not have a Scottish accent in the least, and I thought the setting for the Scottish highlands was kind of odd. I mean, why the Scottish highlands? Sorry, another question. The film was interesting in relation to the idea of immortality and having to kill other immortals in order to win some sort of prize. I thought the scenes in New York were strong - the fighting between immortals was really cool and the whole romance between MacLeod and Brenda C. Wyatt (Roxanne Hart) was... odd, but it wasn't the worst. Still, just because a couple of scenes were cool doesn't mean the plot was worthy of anything. This film was devoid of so many explanations. I know I said it in the previous paragraph, but why would you take all the explanations out? Isn't this the part that makes the story more interesting? Sure, I have some cool fighting scenes, but I'm not given much context into how this thing is run.
Highlander was a strange piece, to say the least. It had barely any explanation to the MAIN part of the film, and it seemed like it tried to focus on a romance and an action aspect. This turns out to be quite sloppy and not well done. Still, I guess the film isn't that bad. I was able to watch it, but it still left me utterly confused. I'd give the film six point eight stars on ten. I watched it, didn't hate it, but still - why did the plot go about like that? Just... why?
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