Russell Mulcahy’s 1986 motion-adventure film Highlander was a business failure however finally turned a cult basic. The story about immortal Sixteenth-century swordsmen preventing to be the final one standing gained sufficient of a following to warrant a second installment in 1991 — Highlander II: The Quickening. Sadly, the sequel was a catastrophe in practically each side and is broadly thought-about one of many worst films ever made. Mulcahy, who was sidelined from the undertaking by the movie’s buyers, was reportedly so upset within the ultimate consequence that he could not even sit by a screening.
Years later, a director’s reduce of Highlander II was launched, with scenes rearranged and whole plotlines eliminated, in an try to create one thing watchable from the scraps obtainable. This iteration of the film, dubbed the Renegade Model, is the one model accessible through streaming at this time. Although that launch was barely higher acquired, it wasn’t profitable sufficient to erase the haunting recollections of the unique — simply ask famed movie critic Roger Ebert, who dubbed the film so dangerous that it was virtually good.
‘Highlander II’ Is Utterly Illogical
Highlander II: The Quickening, thought-about probably the most pointless motion sequels, begins its story within the Nineties in a society that lives underneath a protecting defend created after the Earth’s ozone layer dissolved, leading to perpetual evening. The Protect was created by a former immortal, Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert), in any other case generally known as The Highlander, the principle character of the franchise.
Quick-forwarding to the yr 2024, Connor experiences flashbacks about his life on one other planet known as Zeist, during which he led a rise up in opposition to their chief, Common Katana, 500 years prior. He additionally discovers {that a} corrupt company is withholding details about the repaired ozone layer so it may proceed to revenue off the Protect and goals to disclose the reality whereas avoiding assassins despatched from Zeist by Katana.
The “quickening” referenced within the film’s title refers to how an immortal can soak up all the talents, information, and lifeforce from one other, replenishing their very own youth and vitality. Or, as Roger Ebert described it, “‘Quickening’ is a course of by which two folks contact one another and are surrounded by particular results, making it look as if considered one of them is standing in a puddle and the opposite had simply caught his finger into a lightweight socket.”
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What Made ‘Highlander II’ So Unhealthy?
Ebert’s greatest complaints about Highlander II: The Quickening are shared by practically everybody who has seen the film — particularly, its nonsensical science, an impossible-to-understand timeline, and fully unbelievable plot. As Ebert factors out, for some purpose, one of many outcomes of the Protect is a continuing temperature and humidity of 99 levels, which has no scientific reasoning behind it, contemplating it’s perpetually darkish. As a substitute of plunging the world again into an Ice Age, one way or the other, the warmth has been turned up. Equally, the worldwide blackout has seemingly no impact on the world’s meals provide, which might be unlikely contemplating the dearth of obligatory daylight for plant progress and all of Earth’s power being channeled into the laser beam that sustains the Protect.
Shifting extra into the fiction a part of “science-fiction,” even the weather of the Highlander II story which were borne of creativeness do not make a lot sense, notably concerning the Immortals and their residence planet Zeist (which has the identical lengths of days and years as Earth regardless of its a lot nearer proximity to the solar). Supposedly, the Immortals have been banished to Earth after their rise up in opposition to Katana failed — however they don’t seem to be truly immortal as a result of they will die if beheaded by one other Immortal, or in the event that they return to Zeist, or underneath various different circumstances. Their potential to die or not based mostly on which planet they’re on, who they’re preventing, and what time interval they’re in is continually muddled and makes it unimaginable for the viewers to spend money on a story that may’t even join its personal dots.
Can the ‘Highlander’ Franchise Be Saved?
The unique reduce of Highlander II: The Quickening makes about as a lot sense as slapping a bunch of unrelated scenes from totally different sci-fi films collectively and crossing your fingers that it creates a remotely comprehensible story. In actual fact, the film was so fully disconnected from the world established by the primary Highlander that an alternate sequel was launched in 1994, Highlander III: The Sorcerer, which fully disregards the occasions of the second movie.
A Highlander reboot is ready to be launched in 2026, directed by Chad Stahelski and starring Henry Cavill, a possibility to redeem the franchise and presumably jumpstart a brand new one. Regardless, its disastrous predecessors will not quickly be forgotten by sci-fi followers if Roger Ebert’s ultimate prediction is true.
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The critic sums up Highlander II: The Quickening as “probably the most hilariously incomprehensible film I’ve seen in lots of an extended day — Wherever science fiction followers collect, in many years and generations to return, this movie will probably be remembered in hushed tones as one of many immortal low factors of the style.” What a legacy to beat.