And Now Everyone's an Alien

Whatever else you can say about Highlander II: The Quickening, and we’re about to go in deep on the film, the most shocking thing about it is the fact that it exists at all. Highlander didn’t set the world on fire when it was released, landing with a thud at the Box Office and only making $12.8 Mil against its $19 budget, a black eye for production studio Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment. It did have some things going for it, such as the killer soundtrack written and performed by Queen, as well as a concept that absolutely resonated with a certain segment of the viewing public. While the film wasn’t a hit in its initial release, it did find a following at rental and home video markets, especially in Europe. Because of that, a sequel was planned.

Right off the bat, if you’ve seen Highlander, the thought of a sequel already has to feel outlandish. The whole concept of the first film was that there were immortals who, eventually, would be drawn together to fight each other until there was only one immortal left, and then that immortal would win the prize. The first film ties it all up, with lead character Connor McCleod (Christopher Lambert) defeating his last rival and winning the prize. No more immortals, story over. So how do you make a sequel when the story has completely resolved itself?

Well, that’s easy: just magically introduce more immortals. Depending on the cut of the film you watch, whether it’s the theatrical cut or the later re-edited director’s cut known as the “Renegade Version”, the immortals that come to 2024 Earth (when the film is set) are either space aliens from the planet Zeist or time travelers from a technologically advanced civilization in the distant past of Earth. They come to the future to kill Connor because he was part of a failed revolution back on his home planet (or in his home time period) and he was exiled to Earth to fight and die. He didn’t die, and now they want him dead.

Confusing? Well that’s only the first of many issues this film has to resolve. It also has to find a way to bring back Connor’s friend, Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez (as played by Sean Connery), who has been very much dead for 600 years. And on top of that, it has to try and introduce a sci-fi plot that would justify all these immortal beings running around, causing carnage and having sword fights. It would take a deft hand at the helm, and a really good script, to pull all of that off. Highlander II: The Quickening had neither.

Note that at this point you can only watch the “Renegade Version” of the film, with the original theatrical cut essentially getting subsumed by this later edition. The theatrical edition was only, of course, released in theaters and was the edition printed for the version run of VHS tapes. But once the “Renegade Version” came out, and was embraced by fans as the “better” version of the film (not good, mind you, just better), it became the de facto version of the movie, with the original cut going into a vault, never to be seen again. As such, for this review we’re working on the “Renegade Version” since it’s what I had at hand. Believe me, it won’t help matters at all.

The film opens with Connor McCleod, now an old man, having spent the last four decades enjoying the spoils of “The Prize” by allowing himself to age, finally. In the 1990s he worked with a scientist, Allan Neyman (Allan Rich), to develop a shield to protect the world. The Ozone Layer was dying, and without the shield much of humanity would have been killed off by deadly solar rays. The shield worked, and it’s been running above the world for 40 years, but it’s also cast the Earth in permanent twilight, with many saying McCleod, despite his best intentions, is the one that destroyed the world.

It may be that the shield isn’t needed anymore, but before Connor can begin investigating all of that with the help of terrorist and climate scientist Louise Marcus (a very much wasted in this film Virginia Madsen), he first has to battle some immortals. In the distant past (because we’re in the “Renegade Version”) the evil General Katana (a fabulously over-acting Michael Ironside) realizes that Connor McCleod has won “The Prize” and might still be a threat despite his old age. He sends two goons to stop Connor, but the old man is able to kill them and, in the process, steal their immortal power and become young again. Katana realizes if he wants Connor dead he’ll have to do it himself, so he travels forward and plots a way to kill Connor and take over the world. It’s a race against time, and against immortals, to save the Earth from the very tech that was meant to protect it.

So here’s the thing: Highlander II: The Quickening is a film that has to do way too much to simply fill its 100 minute (give or take, depending on the cut) runtime. It could have maybe contented itself with having a new batch of immortals rise up and fight Connor, but we’d already seen that storyline and it’s unlikely doing all that all over again could fill a theatrical length (although whenever we get to the third film of this franchise, we’ll certainly see). Or it could have gone the route of Connor trying to save the Earth from the very tech he designed, but then we wouldn’t have immortal swordsmen to fight, and that’s the whole hook of this franchise. So, instead, the film decides to do both, despite the fact that neither side of the story really fits well with the other half.

General Katana is a villain in search of a purpose. He’d won the revolution way back in the past (or on the alien planet, if you prefer) and now he has no one to fight. If Connor returns, that gives him a foe, but so long as Connor is content to sit on Earth and slowly die, there really isn’t much for Katana to do. He has to force himself into the story despite this, and he remains an awkward fit for the full throughout its length. What the film needed to do was draw Connor back home, to his timeline or his planet, so he could finish the revolution he helped start and free his people from Katana’s evil.

Note, none of this actually happens in the movie as shot. Maybe there was originally an intent to make that the plot of the third film (although that’s doubtful) but the fact is this film introduces it’s alien planet/past timeline and then does nothing with it, making it a pointless addition for any reason other than to explain where the immortals come from. But it also, in the process, completely retcons all of the history we learned in the first film, making that entire movie a complete waste of time. This story, in short, is pointless and makes no sense. The only thing it does is allow us to have more immortals, but there had to be a better way to introduce them than this.

By the same token, the “we must protect the Earth with a giant radiation shield” story is also stupid. For starters, how does a dude that has been a swordfighter and antique salesman, Connor McCleod, learn the science and engineering to build a planet-wide shield? There’s nothing in his story that shows he’s at all good with tech, or has any kind of science background at all. Now, sure, if he’s from a technologically advanced planet or past history then maybe they had the means to develop that, but the film has to justify its own story by saying that Connor forgot all of that when he came to 1500s Scotland. Did he suddenly remember all of it, who he was and where he came from, because of “The Prize”? Maybe, but that’s a large bit of information the film never justifies during its runtime.

And then there’s the return of Sean Connery’s Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez. At some point, during his fights with the immortals, Connor yells out his friend’s name and, for some reason, that’s enough to summon the character back from the dead, reappearing where he died in Scotland, now in the present. Is this a power Connor has because of “The Prize”? And if so, why doesn’t he try to summon any of the other immortals he knew, and was friends with, that died over the years? This isn’t something the film delves into at all, simply waving it away with a smirk and a shrug. “Oh, I’m back from the dead. Who knows why.” And that’s it.

The funny thing is that everyone involved in the movie knew it was going to be a complete disaster. Lambert and Connery hated their time on the film because they knew it was trash, but they were contractually bound to do it. Connery only returned so long as all of his money was donated to Scottish charity, and it was apparently a lot of money he negotiated for it. Ironside specifically stated that the movie was such garbage that he decided if he was gonna be in a trash film he’d go for broke and act as big and over-the-top as he could. It’s a wonderful, scenery chewing performance that is about the only thing worth watching in this dreadful film. It’s all just so bad.

Usually I can find a thread worth saving, something in one of these terrible movies I keep watching that would lead me to a version of the film that could actually be watchable. Highlander II: The Quickening is one of those movies that defies me completely. Hell, it got a chance to make a better, more watchable version of itself and it’s still terrible even with a re-editing mulligan. The movie is just bad and there’s basically no way to save it. You have to pretend it doesn’t exist and then move on.

Which, amusingly enough, is what the third film did, pretending this film didn’t happen and ignoring all the events within it. And then the fourth film decided to ignore everything from all three movies, for the most part, treating almost all of it as a fever dream of Connor McCleod while he was in some kind of stasis meditation. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ll clever those films eventually, and it’ll be just as painful as the ride has been up to this point. I’ve seen them before. I know.

Still, this film is an abomination. No one was hankering for a sequel to the first Highlander, a film that bombed when it came out but had some loyal fans that enjoyed its simple concept and goofy sword fighting. This sequel makes this bigger and dumber without finding a way to justify its own existence. It’s the kind of sequel that makes a studio go, “wow, we really fucked up. Let’s never do that again.” Except then they did, and they really should have known better.