Highlander: Director's Cut (1986)

Director: Russell Mulcahy

Cast: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, Roxanne Hart, Beatie Edney

Country: United Kingdom / United States

Rating: R

Run Time: 110 minutes

Highlander is the first in a surprisingly massive franchise of films, television, and books. The first entry combines elements of Scottish culture, sword fighting, and the amazing music of Queen. Highlander is a cinematic blender that takes different elements and finds a way to fuse them all into a unique piece of cinema. However, do these blended elements still hold up today? Read on to find out and to discover that there can only be one!

"There can only be one!"

Highlander's opening sequence is better than the film itself. It starts off with Queen's "Princes of the Universe" blasting over the credits. We than see a wrestling match as the camera floats over the crowd and pushes towards our main character in the audience, Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert). MacLeod leaves the match and walks down into a parking garage. Suddenly, a man with Aviator shades on pops up behind him and whips out an old sword. Connor pulls a katana out of his trenchcoat and than begins to duke it out with the man on top of cars! Why can't every movie start off this great? The film immediately plunges you into an exciting and surprising action scene devoid of explanation.

Highlander tells the story of Connor MacLeod (Christoph Lambert), an immortal who has lived for many centuries. He learned of his immortality when Victor Kruger (Clancy Brown) killed him on a Scottish battlefield long ago. Now that Connor has died at his age as a mortal, he will live the rest of his life at his age as an immortal. Juan Ramirez (Sean Connery), a Spanish immortal, teaches Connor all about the ways of the immortals. He prepares him for The Gathering, a time when all of the world's immortals will feel an urge to meet in the same place. In the film, that gathering place happens to be New York City.

Being an immortal means lots of unnecessary back flips.

There are plenty of rules to being an immortal. You can only be killed by having your head chopped off, you cannot have children, and cannot fight other immortals on holy ground (i.e. churches). Therefore, all of the immortals must kill one another in order to obtain the prize. In other words: THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE! Don't worry, they say this line a dozen times in the movie, you'll never forget it. The film is essentially all mythology building and set up for a battle between the two final immortals, Connor and Kruger. There's some romance along the way too but it's pretty weak and forgetful.

Christopher Lambert (Fortress, Southland Tales) is decent in the lead role. He looks so much like actor Thomas Jane that it scares me though. Lambert puts on his best Scottish accent but doesn't come off convincing at all. The problem with the character of Connor MacCleoud is that he isn't interesting or compelling. I found the plot and mythology that surrounded Connor to be far more interesting. MacCleoud is nothing more than a one-note character surrounded by far more interesting characters. It's also worth mentioning that this character is Lambert's claim to fame (unless you watched Mortal Kombat as a kid and saw him as Raiden).

Sean Connery (Dr. No, The Untouchables) also graces us with his amazing presence as Juan Ramirez, a Spanish man with a katana. Don't you just love that in a film with so many Scottish accents that Scottish Sean Connery plays a Spanish man? He gets to be Connor's mentor and is quite affective in the role. Connery is probably the best actor in the film. Honestly, when is Sean Connery not amazing? He also gets to show his sword wielding skills in an epic sword fight between Kruger inside of a collapsing castle. It's an awesome action scene that is made that much better by Connery's presence.

"It's better to burn out, than fade away!"

The actor who clearly had the most fun in the film is Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption). He hams it up as Kruger, the ridiculously evil immortal that desires to kill Connor. Kruger goes through a lot of phases in the film. We see him in an armor made of skulls, a kilt with a terrible black wig, and than a punkish leather outfit with no hair and safety pins attached to his neck. I wish I could say that Kruger wins the fashion award for this film, but Connery's poofy bright red outfit is too hilarious not to be the best outfit. These entertaining performances by Connery and Brown save Highlander from its dull proceedings.

Highlander is told in an engaging non-linear manner. It bounces back and forth between the present in New York and Connor's origins in Scotland. We get a lot of mythology explaining during the flashbacks that also serve to explain MacCleoud's back story. To be honest, I think that the mythology needed to be more fleshed out. The audience is never given an answer as to why people become immortals. We also don't get to see friendly immortals have to kill one another. That would have been an interesting conflict to see play out. Instead, the film opts for the villain to always be the one performing the beheadings instead of a friendly immortal. Much like Roland Emmerich's mythology heavy Universal Soldier, Highlander constantly feels like a film that could have been so much more.

Fans of mystical swordplay will probably enjoy this film.

The choreography of the film's many sword fights rank from bland to average. Besides the exciting opening sword fight, none of the action scenes impress. Highlander is a rare instance where I actually enjoyed the story, characters, and music more than the action scenes themselves. The issue with a poorly choreographed sword fight is that it becomes nothing more than watching two people swing there swords in the same pattern: left, right, left, right, left, right. These sword fights could have benefited from more intricate choreography.

However, there is a saving grace amidst Highlander's wonky plot, bland action scenes, and boring lead performance: Queen. Legendary rock/pop group Queen wrote numerous songs for the film and they are all incredible. Many of the songs in the film, "Princes of the Universe", "Who Wants to Live Forever?", "It's A Kind of Magic", and "Gimme the Prize", are some of the best songs I have ever heard written for a film. It is mind boggling for a film of such average quality to have such incredible songs. Whenever a Queen song plays, you will become glued to the screen. If you have no intention of every watching this film, I beg that you download the film's soundtrack. Besides Highlander's interesting mythology, this soundtrack is the biggest reason as to why the film has endured as a cult phenomena for so long. I also am a huge Queen fan so I am a bit biased on this one.

You'd think there'd be only one but there are numerous sequels...

Highlander is ultimately a victim to itself. Its cheesy fight scenes, decent acting, and faulty script help make it a perfect representation of low budget 80's action. However, Highlander is a rare flawed film that makes up for many of its missteps in great strides. The soundtrack by Queen is truly incredible. It accentuates ever scene and helps push the film into must watch territory. The film's epic scale and unique mythos also helps elevate the film beyond its low budget trappings. Sure, it's still a low budget turd. But at least it's got ambition. Overall, Highlander is a recommended action film despite its over long run time and various flaws.

Rating: 6/10 - A silly but enjoyable sci-fi/action/fantasy that fans of cult cinema need to see. Lambert and Connery's presence should be enough to salivate any die hard action fan's needs.

Franchise:
Highlander (dir. Russell Mulcahy, 1986)
Highlander II: The Quickening (dir. Russell Mulcahy, 1991)
Highlander: The Final Dimension (dir. Andrew Morahan, 1994)
Highlander: Endgame (dir. Douglas Aarniokoski, 2000)
Highlander: The Source (dir. Brett Leonard, 2007)