February 29, 2004

Ug!

This movie runs the decathlon of stupidity and comes in first in every event. In every other area it gets the booby prize with high honors. As much as I hate to admit it, I saw this movie in a movie theater without having seen the first movie. Grudgingly I visited the first Highlander expecting the same torpor that I that got here, but to my surprise I actually like that movie. That depressed me because it made me hate this movie even more! I didn't see Highlander III, I just thought I would quit while I was ahead.

Highlander 2: The Quickening is a movie that doesn't require suspension of disbelief so much as it requires a full-frontal lobotomy with a chainsaw. The script was edited with a cheese grater and written with the wan hope that anyone watching the film wouldn't ask too many questions. We're not supposed to shake our heads when the movie begins in 1999; shift ahead 25 years then shifts backwards 500 years to medieval Scotland and then to another planet. I make it a practice not to dismiss a movie right off the bat but when the movie shifts time three times 15 minutes, I begin finding a better use for the cinema light to examine my ticket for the refund policy.

It begins 500 years in the past on the Planet Zeist and I assume that the rotation works on that same time table as earth even though it's sun is so close that the inhabitants should be deep fried. It coincides with earth time so that it can explain why the movie shifts to medieval Scotland to explain how Connor McLoed, one of the planets "immortals", has found himself in a kilt on horseback. He is sent to Scotland as punishment for leading a rebellion and as a term of his sentence, he's immortal. But not really. Well sorta.

Actually the movie tries to explain this in a bit of dialogue that isn't much help. A character says: "You're mortal there, but you're immortal here, until you kill all the guys from there who have come here, and then you're mortal here. Unless, you go back there, or some more guys from there came here, in which case you become immortal here, again." It’s pretty bad when the characters are as confused by the plot as we are.

Also, in 1999 there's some business about the O-Zone finally collapsing and threatening to fry mankind. Connor offers up a shield called Shield (?) to keep the rays of the sun from turning us into charcoal. The idea of the shield isn't quite as difficult to explain as that immortality thing but it isn't any more logical. McLoed's big idea involves concentrating the planet's energy into a "lay-zur" and is shot up into a satellite. Therefore Earth is saved from solar radiation (proving, I suppose, that if we would have depended on solar power, there would be hell to pay).

But, there's a drawback, there is no sun and the temperature consistently 99 degrees. Being 99 degrees raises another question of why, in 2024, we find Conner attending the Opera surrounded men in tuxes who should all be passing out from the heat. Furthermore there would be a major loss of food production and the land would be desert, but hey at least the arts are finally getting a boost.

Sean Connery puts another dent in his reputation by appearing as Ramirez, a Zeist- banished warrior now clanking swords in medieval Scotland. He doesn’t appear much in the movie and I wasn’t surprised given the material. But then I saw Highlander and I wondered how managed to fit into this movie since we last saw him in the previous film minus a head. Maybe Zardoz had something to do with that.

Maybe it's asking too much, but this movie has to be seen to be believed. Nah, that's asking too much, don't see it and just believe me, it sucks.