Highlander 2

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Written by KTP

Highlander 2:  How did my sword fight porn turn into a shitty sci-fi film?

In 1986, it was a fight to the death in the box office. You had movies like Platoon, Stand By Me, Top Gun, Aliens, Cobra, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off trying to punch each other to death for number one. This was also the year that Big Trouble In Little China and Back to School came out and a movie trying to stand apart had to be special and unique. So a movie where immortals try to chop off each other's heads with two handed swords just might do the trick. Highlander was this and more with an over the top performance by Sean Connery and one of the best soundtracks for a movie ever made by Queen. Even Clancy Brown as the villain was memorable as Highlander elbowed and cut its way through to be one of the greats. Then, the sequel came to be and the end result was about as horrible as a lactose intolerant man pounding chocolate milk on a hot summer day. Shit got everywhere.

"You do me and I'll do you."

In the original movie, we have a beautiful inspiring story about immortals on Earth having to chop each other's heads off with the goal being, “There can be only one.” Our heroes being the marble-mouthed protagonist Connor MacLeod played by Christoper Lambert and his charismatic Egyptian-Spaniard, who is only in Scotland by circumstance, mentor Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez (I am not making this shit up) played by Sean Connery. Connor eventually becomes “the one” after killing the villain and earning the prize of being the last of the immortals. With Highlander 2, they ditch hacking each other with swords in New York for some half-assed cyberpunk future where we fucked up the ozone layer so much that MacLeod had to build a giant shield around the world to protect it. We find out that the immortals are actually from another planet and part of a rebellion that seeks to stop General Katana. Yes, that is his actual name. The rebellion get stomped and sent to “the future” where they must cut off each others head for the prize of being able to die of old age or returning back to their planet. Connor has killed the last of the immortals so he spends his time as an old man moping around remembering all this shit. General Katana hates Connor so much that he can't wait a few weeks for him to die and sends weird flying bird-men to kill him. They fuck up and get decapitated giving Connor his immortality back (I don't know how it fucking works) sending him on a quest to kill Katana and a shitty side plot about the ozone layer.

Here's General Katana. He's fucking incompetent, but goddamn it, Ironside gives it his best.

Christopher Lambert loved working with Connery so much, he basically said, “Fuck the last movie. I don't care that he died. Bring him back with magic.” He's more the comic relief this time around using his suave ‘man out of time’ charactor to buy clothes and tell women sitting next to him on a plane that he's not above eating pussy. Lambert is obviously back and you need to subtitles to understand his clever quips to his love interest which are just filler in between sword fights. Michael Ironside manages to make a convincing villain, even for a character that fucks up in every other scene. Virginia Madsen is probably the most interesting character being Conner's love interest. It's not so much that she's hot or actually a love interest, but the fact she represents the viewer scratching their heads wondering what the fuck is going on. “Immortals? What happened to your wife? How the hell did you get young again? Why is Ramirez back? Do you guys even remember the last movie?”

"We live right here in Retardedville. Here's my house."

This film is the perfect example of why you shouldn't fuck with the continuity of a plot. The film butchered it so much that it was rereleased with a “Renegade” version where they took out the other planet bullshit, but it only makes the movie just a bit less shitty. Maybe this is more of an example of why you should never skimp out on the Queen soundtrack budget. Who knows? At least they didn't retcon the sword fighting.