Highlander

 

I guess if you want to get picky, Highlander isn’t your typical superhero movie.  There’s no aliens or adoring/condemning public or big flashy costumes, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone refer to the title character as a superhero.  Then again, it does feature a good guy fighting a bad guy, rescuing damsels in distress and generally being a broody loner, so I say it counts.

We start with some voiceover narration that explains the premise of the film.  Sort of.  I’m filling it out a bit with information we learn later, but here’s the gist: living among humans is a very special group of people called Immortals who are, well, immortal.  And they go around killing each other off and will continue to do so until the fabled Gathering, when the few who remain will fight to the last man standing.  (And I do mean MAN.  Where are the female Immortals, may I ask?  Or is it too early for the feminist rant?)  Once there is only one Immortal left, he will receive the Prize, which everyone wants but no one knows what it is.  Sign me up!

After the incredibly unimaginitive opening credits, the movie starts at a wrestling match, because hey, why not.  It is here that we meet our trench coat-wearin’ protagonist Connor MacLeod, current alias Russell Nash, who isn’t so much watching the match as flashing back to a battlefield in old-timey Scotland.  Ten seconds later, he leaves the match and heads to the parking garage.  Gee, I’m sure glad we saw that totally necessary scene.

In the garage, MacLeod is attacked by a dude with a sword.

 

Look, guy, I know it’s annoying when someone steals your parking spot, but there’s no need to get all huffy about it.

Suit Guy gets his head lopped off for his trouble, at which point his body is spirited away someplace and an unknown energy destroys half the garage or… something.  It’s not really made clear what’s going on just yet, but that’s okay, we’re only ten minutes in.  It’ll all become clear later (sort of—it’s implied that whenever an Immortal is killed, his killer absorbs his power, but I can’t remember if they ever make that clear).

MacLeod runs away, only for the police to take him in for questioning the minute he steps outside, and forensics/metallurgical expert Brenda Wyatt finds the dead guy’s very old and valuable sword lying around the garage. (MacLeod hid his.) Since Russell Nash is an antique dealer, this only compounds the police’s suspicions. 

But!  No time to worry about that, because we’ve got a flashback to fill out.  Back in 1536, the Clan MacLeod, including Connor, all of whom I swear live in that castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, are heading off to do battle with the evil Clan Frasier.

 

Did I mention they were evil?  Okay, just wanted to make sure I did because it’s really not that obvious that they’re evil unless you already know it, and I didn’t want anyone to get confused or anything because they didn’t realize that they were evil.

The head of the clan is the Kurgan, pictured above, who is played by Clancy Brown.  (Hardcore superhero nerds will recognize him as the voice of Lex Luthor from Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League: Unlimited, among other things.)  Under the Kurgan’s orders, no one is to fight Connor except for himself, leaving Connor confused and disappointed.

 

“Aw, c’mon guys!  I wanna slit throats too!”

We end up cutting away before the first battle between the Highlander and the Kurgan, because I guess the filmmakers didn’t want us overdosing on excitement less than half an hour in, but the next time we check in with Connor, he’s been fatally wounded, much to the grief of his nameless wife/girlfriend/lady person.

Back in the present, the police accuse MacLeod of killing Suit Guy with that very sword, even though that makes no sense.  There isn’t any blood or guts on (or near) the dead guy’s sword since he never got a blow in, so that couldn’t be the murder weapon unless MacLeod had the time to do a very spiffy cleaning job (which he didn’t).

And as if that wasn’t trouble enough, our old pal the Kurgan has arrived in New York, and he’s dead set on having MacLeod’s head.  He’s focused, well-trained, angry and will allow nothing and nobody to stand between him and the Prize!

 

…but hey, he’s waited several centuries already, a few more hours won’t hurt.

Meanwhile, Connor returns to the garage to get his sword back, only to end up being stalked by Brenda.  She is promptly treated to a front-row seat in the film’s first real Highlander vs. Kurgan showdown.  She even joins in momentarily, throwing MacLeod a pipe to fight with after he loses his sword.  Why she decides to take MacLeod’s side even though he’s still a murder suspect is beyond me.  Must be the trench coat.  Chicks dig the trench coat.

Back to 16^th century Scotland.  Obviously MacLeod survived the battle wounds the Kurgan gave him, despite their severity.  This is too much for the puny minds of his fellow clansmen to grasp and they run him out of town, convinced he’s in league with the devil.  He mopes at first, but as time goes on, he makes a new life for himself, one where he is free to blacksmith shirtless and make out with hot blondes.

 

At least until Lord Cockblock McFabulous here shows up.

 

“Oh, don’t mind me.  Just pretend I’m not even here!”

This is Ramirez.  Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez.  He’s here to school MacLeod in the ways of being an Immortal.  By watching him get struck by lightning.  Repeatedly.
 

Ramirez: "The sensation your feeling..."
*DRAMATIC PAUSE*
"...is the Quickening."

 

Really?  I thought it was Scotsman a flambé, but I never was much of a chef.  More importantly, MacLeod learns that the only way he will ever die is if someone chops off his head.  Ramirez also “explains” about the Gathering and the Prize, though when MacLeod asks why Immortals exist at all, Ramirez just asks, “Why does the sun shine?”  Translation: Stop pointing out plot holes and get back to sword fighting.

Sprinkled in among all this backstory are scenes of MacLeod and Brenda each doing their own thing in modern day New York, but they’re really, really short and don’t have anything to do with the main plot.  I think they just put those scenes in so we’d remember about the modern part of the film, though if that’s the case, why didn’t they just put it chronological order?

But let’s not forget MacLeod’s wife Heather, shall we?  This wife is actually relevant (somewhat), but if Ramirez has any say in it, MacLeod will dump her and spare himself the pain of her inevitable death later on.  They have this discussion while admiring Ramirez’s sword.

 

In the time it took me to type those sentences, three more fanfics based on that scene were written.

It doesn’t really matter anyway, since MacLeod refuses to leave Heather.  Adding to the film’s sudden emo fit is the arrival of the Kurgan, who breaks into MacLeod’s home and slices off Ramirez’s head while Heather stands there screaming like the useless idiot she is.  (Why did you not run when Ramirez told you to?  Why did you not try to find MacLeod?  The door is wide open!)  Also, the Kurgan rapes Heather after Ramirez’s death.  Because that’s what everyone wants to see in their cheesy fantasy sci-fi flicks, isn’t it?  Implied sexual assaults which are never dealt with and serve no real purpose?  Yeah, you know how much I love those!

So finally, after that lovely little scene, we return to the present for more than five seconds and oh wait, I lied.  Nazi time.

When in doubt, add Nazis.

Apparently MacLeod had found his way to England by World War II, where he rescued a little girl named Rachel from a random Nazi attack.  In the present, Rachel is MacLeod’s loyal secretary and is witness to MacLeod’s asking Brenda if he can come over to Brenda’s house for dinner.  Worst date ever. 

Brenda, wanting more information about the crazy sword man, agrees to play hostess, but not before bugging her apartment and hiding a gun within easy reach.  MacLeod catches on fairly quickly and oh look, another flashback, big surprise.

Picking up right after Ramirez’s death (I’m so glad we got to see MacLeod’s reaction to the death of his friend and mentor, by the way), we see the remainder of Connor and Heather’s relationship.  Naturally, since MacLeod is immortal, he stays young and healthy even as his beloved wife grows old and passes on.  Heartbroken, he burns their home to the ground and finally accepts the truth behind Ramirez’s words—he doesn’t regret staying with Heather, but he has not loved anyone since her death. 

In all honesty, this is one of my favorite sequences in the film.  There’s no sword fighting or beheading, and Heather is still Generic Female Character so it’s hard to care about her for her own sake, but the love and pain that MacLeod goes through is genuinely touching.  It’s a good character moment, showing us why he’s so broody in the present day when he used to be so open and happy in his younger days.

We return to New York to see MacLeod conversing with our token black Immortal, Kastagir.  Gee, I sure hope the Kurgan doesn’t chop off his head less than ten minutes after his introduction.

 

Oopsy-daisy!

Meanwhile, Brenda does some digging and discovers that everyone who has owned MacLeod/Nash’s house since 1793 has the same handwriting, and that every single one of them has the name of a child who died shortly after birth.  Conclusion: Nash has been stealing the identity of a dead child, pretending to die, stealing another kid’s identity, and so forth for centuries.  Nice work if you can get it.

Speaking of Nash, MacLeod and the Kurgan bump into each other in a church.  Don’t worry, no fisticuffs—according to Ramirez, no Immortal will fight on holy ground.  For some reason.  So basically the Kurgan just freaks out the clergy and leaves.

MacLeod is still in a bad mood when he gets home to find Brenda demanding the truth.  So he takes her to his memorabilia room.

 

I want that room.  Can I have that room?

MacLeod tells Brenda all about his being an Immortal.  He goes on to prove it in the most obnoxious way possible by stabbing himself in the gut right in front of her.  I guess that after the first hundred years or so, normal human interactions begin to elude you.

The next few scenes go by fairly quickly, and I can’t say they’re particularly well thought-out.  Brenda apparently thinks seppuku is hot and immediately sleeps with MacLeod, despite the fact that there has been precisely zero build-up and zero hints that they like each other that way.  And then they’re all of a sudden at the zoo, where MacLeod is giving all the reasons why they’re relationship won’t work.  At the very least, “I can’t bear to have my heart broken a second time” is a better reason for rejecting someone than Peter Parker’s “my selfless sacrifice will ensure your safety even though the entire movie has already proven me a liar.”

Still, they part on friendly terms, and Brenda goes back to her apartment just in time to get kidnapped by the Kurgan.  This leads us to the final battle between our final two Immortals—the Kurgan vs. the Highlander on a rooftop amidst a flurry of destruction and pyrotechnics.

 

This is definitely the flashiest fight scene of the bunch, as well it should be—it’s the final boss battle, of course you want it memorable.  Heck, even Brenda, who starts the scene as a damsel in distress, rescues HERSELF and even very briefly joins the fight by smacking the Kurgan with a pipe. (What can I say?  The lady likes pipes.)

The fight ends the only way it can—with the Kurgan losing his head.  Aaaand then blue flames shoot out his neck.

 

…Okay, well, at least he’s defeated… I think.

 

…And then computer-generated demons lift MacLeod into the air and... swirl around randomly? attack him?... as he repeatedly screams “I KNOW EVERYTHING!”  (Braggart.) So is this an alternate ending for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or what?  At least Sean Connery was IN this movie.  Also, hello there, incredibly obvious wires.
 

 

After that bit of weirdness, we learn that The Prize is, in fact, losing the immortality while gaining the ability to read the minds of everyone on the planet.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but I can’t help feeling strangely disappointed.  The film ends with Brenda and MacLeod smooching on a hilltop in Scotland someplace.

 

So, conclusions?  Well, Highlander is very far from perfect.  I’m still not sure why the film wasn’t ordered chronologically, since we spend so much time in Scotland at the beginning anyway.  Brenda and MacLeod’s relationship seems incredibly forced, like the only reason they end up together is because the writer knew that the audience would expect them to.  Honestly, if they had just remained friends the entire time with maybe a hint that it could develop into something more at the end, the only things that would have changed would be the deletion of the sex scene.

 

On the upside, Clancy Brown is hilariously over-the-top as the Kurgan, and what could have been a very humorless, dark role becomes a menacing yet often funny ball of leather-wearing crazy.  In addition, Brenda doesn’t annoy me like most female leads in superhero movies.  She does fall into some of the stereotypes, like her persistent pursuing of MacLeod’s “true identity” and her getting kidnapped to attract the hero’s attention.  But mostly, she’s investigating MacLeod because that’s her job and not because she’s spontaneously fallen in love with her subject, and she does ultimately get herself out of trouble.  It’s really quite refreshing after repeatedly being subjected to women like Mary Jane in these kinds of movies.
 

The initial public reaction to the film appears to have been pretty mixed, with some people going wild over it and others denouncing it as cheap silliness.  Still, Highlander proved popular enough that it got several (apparently sucky) sequels and multiple adaptations in other media.  More recently, there was talk of a full-fledged cinematic reboot with Ryan Reynolds, whose previous superhero movies are clearly above reproach, in the title role.  But Wikipedia says that the project is currently in limbo, so we’ll see what happens.

 

As for me, yes, the film is definitely cheesy in spots, but if you approach it knowing that it’s cheesy and don’t expect a super-serious action flick, there’s no reason you can’t enjoy it.  It’s also not a film for people who get upset by unanswered questions because this movie has them in spades.  What was MacLeod doing at the wrestling match at the beginning?  Who bestowed the Prize?  Why?  Did the same beings also create the Immortals, or just take advantage of their existence?  How does MacLeod flashback to half the things he flashes back to, like Ramirez’s death, when he wasn’t there to witness them?  Why would Ramirez bother to train MacLeod if he knows that someday they may end up having to fight to the death?  For that matter, why do any of the Immortals befriend each other?  Won’t that make it awkward when they have to slice each other’s throats?  Why is it that movies about old-timey Scottish badasses get all the best scenery?
 

 

Another positive: I think it was in my review of The Incredibles that I mentioned my relationship to movie music, i.e. I don’t really take note of it unless it’s insanely good, insanely terrible, or just insane.  In the case of The Incredibles, the music was insanely good.  In the case of Highlander, it’s even better.  But what did you expect when half your soundtrack is written and performed by Queen?
 

Just look at them.  They haven’t even started playing yet and they’ve already kicked your butt.

 

Queen is my all-time favorite band, so I am most definitely biased.  But every note of their contribution to the Highlander soundtrack is pure musical brilliance, and I will happily decapitate anyone who says otherwise.  “Who Wants to Live Forever?” is the best used in the film, since it plays over MacLeod’s final years with Heather, but if you just listen to the music without watching the film, it’s all pretty awesome, from “Princes of the Universe,” the title of which confirms that there aren’t any female Immortals *ahem* straight through “A Kind of Magic,” which plays over the ending credits.
 

It’s so awesome, in fact, that they couldn’t release a full official soundtrack without risking the implosion of the universe.  (I’m assuming that’s the reason.)  However, the instrumental tracks can be found on Highlander: The Original Scores, and the Queen contributions are on their twelfth studio album, A Kind of Magic (except for “Hammer to Fall,” which is from their previous album The Works).  As a bonus, don’t forget to check out the “Princes of the Universe” music video, which features Freddie Mercury fending off a sword attack with his microphone.
 

 

If this is the plot of the reboot, I’M IN.

 

Next Time: Yes, Nightwing, we can see he has lasers, now stop stealing the spotlight away from your brother.  He’s got enough issues.

 

Images from Highlander and Princes of the Universe