Before I start, I know this is
film number 96, and that reviews for #100 - #97 haven’t been uploaded yet, but
we only decided to start this blog a few days back, so we have a little
catching up to do. This will happen soon, I promise
#96 Highlander 2: The Quickening.
Firstly, I would like to say that I saw this movie when it was first released on video back in the early nineties. The thing is though, I didn’t remember anything about it before I watched it again last night, and I only know I’d definitely seen it before after I’d watched it last night as I remembered Viginia Madsen in it. That’s it. That’s how unmemorable a film can be. If I didn’t write this review today, I’m sure that my brain would wipe the film from my memory again, possibly as some form of defence mechanism.
Anyway, the movie…
As far as the plot goes, this is it (or at least what I could make out of it). Conner MacLeod having proved himself to be the best at lopping heads off in the first movie has been allowed to grow old. During his mortal years he somehow becomes a brilliant engineer and helps make a machine that shields earth from the suns radiation that is leaking through a damaged ozone layer. Meanwhile General Katana (Michael Ironside) is in the past where Conner MacLeod was banished from and he’s pissed off that he isn’t dying fast enough (or something along those lines, I never did work out why he bothered to come back to kill an old man). So some assassins and then Katana himself come to the future to kill him. But MacLeod gets help from Ramirez (Sean Connery) again, who I’m sure I remember dying in the first one, and a plucky young “terrorist” Louise (Madsen) as he tries to stay alive and destroyed the shield he created. Oh and some of them are aliens or something. I got confused.
Now, being a crude man, my first remark on Twitter was about the lady singing opera right at the beginning of the movie. I was hoping that she’d be the stereotypical opera singer and that it would all be over. Alas she was quite a thin lady, which coincidentally tied in nicely with the plot, as that was so thin it was practically see through. I may have just been looking through the holes in the plot though, the ones that were bigger than the holes in the ozone layer that Connor was supposed to have plugged. At least with ozone holes you can cover up, stick on some factor 100 sunscreen, a wide brimmed hat and you can avoid the danger (I’m guessing – don’t take this as health advice). These plot holes weren't nearly as avoidable and just left you scratching your head trying to work out what the hell was going on or how any of this was possible after the first movie.
#96 Highlander 2: The Quickening.
Firstly, I would like to say that I saw this movie when it was first released on video back in the early nineties. The thing is though, I didn’t remember anything about it before I watched it again last night, and I only know I’d definitely seen it before after I’d watched it last night as I remembered Viginia Madsen in it. That’s it. That’s how unmemorable a film can be. If I didn’t write this review today, I’m sure that my brain would wipe the film from my memory again, possibly as some form of defence mechanism.
Anyway, the movie…
As far as the plot goes, this is it (or at least what I could make out of it). Conner MacLeod having proved himself to be the best at lopping heads off in the first movie has been allowed to grow old. During his mortal years he somehow becomes a brilliant engineer and helps make a machine that shields earth from the suns radiation that is leaking through a damaged ozone layer. Meanwhile General Katana (Michael Ironside) is in the past where Conner MacLeod was banished from and he’s pissed off that he isn’t dying fast enough (or something along those lines, I never did work out why he bothered to come back to kill an old man). So some assassins and then Katana himself come to the future to kill him. But MacLeod gets help from Ramirez (Sean Connery) again, who I’m sure I remember dying in the first one, and a plucky young “terrorist” Louise (Madsen) as he tries to stay alive and destroyed the shield he created. Oh and some of them are aliens or something. I got confused.
Now, being a crude man, my first remark on Twitter was about the lady singing opera right at the beginning of the movie. I was hoping that she’d be the stereotypical opera singer and that it would all be over. Alas she was quite a thin lady, which coincidentally tied in nicely with the plot, as that was so thin it was practically see through. I may have just been looking through the holes in the plot though, the ones that were bigger than the holes in the ozone layer that Connor was supposed to have plugged. At least with ozone holes you can cover up, stick on some factor 100 sunscreen, a wide brimmed hat and you can avoid the danger (I’m guessing – don’t take this as health advice). These plot holes weren't nearly as avoidable and just left you scratching your head trying to work out what the hell was going on or how any of this was possible after the first movie.
Speaking of the environmental
angle of this film… Why? I know this was a popular topic around the time, Star
Trek 4, Captain Planet, MTV’s “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part
of the problem” environmental videos, which were all fine, but this really
seemed like they picked something out of a hat to fill in the non sword
fighting bits. Rather than make me care about the environment, it made me want
to burn rainforests because of the small off chance that the tree’s in them may
one day be made into paper that gets used as an inlay cover in a Highlander 2
DVD.
Anyway, nobody has ever watched a Highlander film for the messages, people watch them for sword fights. "So what about them?" I hear you all crying at me…. A bit shit really. There’s one that’s conducted whilst one assassin (with a laugh like one the weasels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit), wears some metal wings/hang glider type contraption and MacLeod uses a hover-board (very similar to the Back to the Future 2 ones) which could have been very entertaining. But it’s just boring. They spend so long flying at each other, just for one clash of swords before they fly at each other again, that you quickly lose interest. None of the rest of the fights even slightly compare to the fights in the original movie. Seriously, what’s the point of making a movie where immortals have to chop each others heads off if you can’t even make that bit engaging?
Perhaps I’m being too harsh. But I don’t think so. Once again Sean Connery plays the only Spaniard to have a thicker Edinburgh accent than John Leslie. Christopher Lambert does the most annoying old man voice for the first 20 minutes or so (thank you to Colin for pointing out that he sounded just like Baron greenback from Danger Mouse – it was really bugging me). Michael Ironside (who I normally really like), wasn’t a patch on The Kurgan for meanness and Virginia Madsen doesn’t really seem to have a role to play in the movie at all. She only seems to be there for the eye candy factor.
Truthfully, it's not the worst movie I've seen, it has a few amusing scenes that stopped it being utterly terrible (the train sequence where Katana kills the passengers by making the train go REALLY FAST was strangely compelling). but there is no way I'd ever watch it again. If you're curious about how crappy this movie is, then I'd remind you that this is a sequel and you'd be much better off just watching the original again.
I’ll finish this with the last tweet I sent on this film in our Twitter live mock last night:In Highlander they kept saying "there can be only one", I just wish they followed that thinking....
Anyway, nobody has ever watched a Highlander film for the messages, people watch them for sword fights. "So what about them?" I hear you all crying at me…. A bit shit really. There’s one that’s conducted whilst one assassin (with a laugh like one the weasels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit), wears some metal wings/hang glider type contraption and MacLeod uses a hover-board (very similar to the Back to the Future 2 ones) which could have been very entertaining. But it’s just boring. They spend so long flying at each other, just for one clash of swords before they fly at each other again, that you quickly lose interest. None of the rest of the fights even slightly compare to the fights in the original movie. Seriously, what’s the point of making a movie where immortals have to chop each others heads off if you can’t even make that bit engaging?
Perhaps I’m being too harsh. But I don’t think so. Once again Sean Connery plays the only Spaniard to have a thicker Edinburgh accent than John Leslie. Christopher Lambert does the most annoying old man voice for the first 20 minutes or so (thank you to Colin for pointing out that he sounded just like Baron greenback from Danger Mouse – it was really bugging me). Michael Ironside (who I normally really like), wasn’t a patch on The Kurgan for meanness and Virginia Madsen doesn’t really seem to have a role to play in the movie at all. She only seems to be there for the eye candy factor.
Truthfully, it's not the worst movie I've seen, it has a few amusing scenes that stopped it being utterly terrible (the train sequence where Katana kills the passengers by making the train go REALLY FAST was strangely compelling). but there is no way I'd ever watch it again. If you're curious about how crappy this movie is, then I'd remind you that this is a sequel and you'd be much better off just watching the original again.
I’ll finish this with the last tweet I sent on this film in our Twitter live mock last night:In Highlander they kept saying "there can be only one", I just wish they followed that thinking....
No comments:
Post a Comment