HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING
A film review by Roger Snappy Rubio
Copyright 1991 Roger Snappy Rubio
Starring Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Ironside Directed by Russell Mulcahey
They say that patience is a virtue. Well, for the most part, I tried to stay virtuous all throughout this movie, and it was going well until the bottom fell out. I figured I should go see a moronic movie, and I couldn't have picked a better one to go see.
HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING claims to be a sequel to HIGHLANDER, also directed by Russell Mulcahey. An interview of Chris Lambert I saw on HBO explained why this sequel is so different from the original: Mulcahey wanted to do something completely different, because most sequels nowadays are virtual carbon copies of the original. Ok, fine. Commendable conjecture. So I went into this movie expecting something different, and I was not disappointed. That is, on the difference part.
This movie is interesting, to say the least, but after sitting through the first twenty minutes of this movie, I could tell that this was a cut and paste movie. Oh, I'll put a scene here, paste a scene there, throw in some of the old music from the first film, and not worry about the editing. Put it all together, slap it on a long roll of celluloid, and voila, a movie so *bad* that it will probably become another cult classic like HIGHLANDER did. Or so the director thought.
The only good thing about this movie is Sean Connery. No matter how bad the lines are, Connery always makes them sound good. If you *have* to see this movie, just see it for Sean. When he's done with the movie, that's your cue to leave. After all, Virginia Madsen's character is completely useless, Michael Ironside's resembles the Joker from BATMAN too much, and this business about Zeist and flying immortals; I mean c'mon! Having a bad immortal's head land on a train track and then having a train come by two seconds later just in time for McCleod to have his immortal orgasm is, frankly, an all-out assault on my intelligence (as if the original HIGHLANDER wasn't already). But I can forgive HIGHLANDER for being outrageous; HIGHLANDER II doesn't merit any such charitable emotion.
Now I have to tell the truth here. The first few times I saw HIGHLANDER I didn't like it. The next few times I saw it, it kind of grew on me. As of now, I think it's an okay movie. But after seeing this collage of cutting room floor rejects, I believe HIGHLANDER was overlooked for an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. I could have written a better script than this! Hey Mulcahey! RICOCHET was good, why couldn't you have made this one good too? You've got to adopt the philosophy that Schwarzenegger has: give the people what they want, not what you *think* they want.
THE SNAPMAN
rsnappy@hydra.unm.edu
(Roger Rubio)
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