Movies Highlander (1986) is an underated movie

shinobimusashi said:
I never really realized until a recent rewatch how great the Highlander tv series really was. I liked it back in the day but thought it was just a rinse-wash-repeat monster of the week show. Obviously it's going to have thick cornball layer for being a product of 1992 TV, but beneath that is a surprisingly well written series with great continuity, character development, some pretty shocking character deaths. excellent focus on sword craftsmanship and the art of sword fighting. Really got into it. Great show, better than any of the movies.
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The first season is pretty cookie cutter. Duncan meets bad guy, beheads him, next episode.

After that the show fleshes out in its own direction well
 
The accents don't make sense at all. Lambert never has a Scottish accent, even before he "dies" for the first time. He didn't know he was immortal and he lived his entire life in Scotland, so why wouldn't he have a Scottish accent at that time?

If he lost that accent after living in other countries for a hundred years then fine. That makes sense.

The truth is that Lambert is just a terrible actor. Connery is great but not as a Spaniard. They should've just altered the script to make him originally from somewhere in the UK.

The rest of the movie is really good though. And it's a great premise. This is the one movie where I'd welcome a reboot.
 
Fedorgasm said:
The accents don't make sense at all. Lambert never has a Scottish accent, even before he "dies" for the first time. He didn't know he was immortal and he lived his entire life in Scotland, so why wouldn't he have a Scottish accent at that time?

If he lost that accent after living in other countries for a hundred years then fine. That makes sense.

The truth is that Lambert is just a terrible actor. Connery is great but not as a Spaniard. They should've just altered the script to make him originally from somewhere in the UK.

The rest of the movie is really good though. And it's a great premise. This is the one movie where I'd welcome a reboot.
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He’s Egyptian
 
I’m gonna just speak facts….. old movies like Highlander sucked ass not great storytelling and terrible filmmaking, terrible dialogue, terrible editing. I like it of course because I grew up on it but rewatching it now…. Yikes.

if that film was released today it would be a straight to Netflix 2 rated movie.

Everyone will disagree but you all know it’s the truth.
 
Hades86 said:
I’m gonna just speak facts….. old movies like Highlander sucked ass not great storytelling and terrible filmmaking, terrible dialogue, terrible editing. I like it of course because I grew up on it but rewatching it now…. Yikes.

if that film was released today it would be a straight to Netflix 2 rated movie.

Everyone will disagree but you all know it’s the truth.
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I disagree. If made in the same way and released today it might end up with quite a good reception like It Follows or Turbo Kid.

That said, even if you have criticisms of it, and there are some that can be made, the filmmaking is very good. The shot composition is very good. The cinematography, lighting and atmosphere are very good. The soundtrack is good and the score is outright excellent.

The dialogue...I think the dialogue is actually pretty well written. As for the editing...it's also quite good. Stuff like the transition from the parking lot up to the first shot of the Scottish Highlands is very well done and things like the dissolve from Connor's face to the Mona Lisa mural is quite creative.

highlander-3.png


The movie has flaws - some of which are charming - but I don't think most of what you cite are problems and many of them are actually strengths.
 
fantastic movie. there can be only one, as such all others after the first one should not exist. there can be only one and is only one.
 
I remember liking it as a kid but I don't remember it at all. I'll have to revisit
 
Hades86 said:
I’m gonna just speak facts….. old movies like Highlander sucked ass not great storytelling and terrible filmmaking, terrible dialogue, terrible editing. I like it of course because I grew up on it but rewatching it now…. Yikes.

if that film was released today it would be a straight to Netflix 2 rated movie.

Everyone will disagree but you all know it’s the truth.
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I had the opposite impression. Rewatching the scene setting was great and the sets were full of life. I like it more than when I first saw it because much of the nuance wasn't clear. Also in one of the first quickening scenes apparently Mcleouds sword fell on the ground and the dragon head broke off. I think it was the garage fight at the start. So yeah, you have the irony of Connery not wanting a headless Katana because it wasn't flamboyant enough for Ramirez then his characters gets beheaded and the sword he used also gets beheaded. That's authentic lore not some A.I programmed Morrowined shit.

The whole movie is a sonnet to itself. There can be only one doesn't really have anything to with it anymore and we even use it to rip into the shitty sequels.
 
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Fantastic movie, it’s unique and so oddball I’m surprised it was a success. Casting was perfect and the 80s style urban visuals add something unique 30 years later. I bought the movie with the extended scenes years ago and was delighted to revisit it.
 
Again I think it comes down to Highlander being a strange mix of styles, parts of it take themselves very seriously but other parts are obviously quite self aware pulp that takes a bit of suspension of disbelief.

As Bi says though I think its an interesting production, not always the most polished and obviously drawing on other films of the era(especially Terminator) but to does have some well done compositions/editting, a good soundtrack and good performances by the three male leads that do I think build up a bit of substance, the idea that immortality focuses personal existential crises with Conor and Kurgan representing different choices.

BisexualMMA said:
If it had just been released as some standalone wacky sci fi action thing that didn't have to make all that much sense...then it's not that bad.

But it has been decades and I still can't believe that it was written as a sequel to Highlander.

I have never seen anything else like this that I can think of in the history of film. It would be like if...Jaws 2 came out and it turned out the shark from the first movie was actually a robot transformer from the moon and by the way Robert Shaw is back because he was from the moon too.

Christopher Lambert tried to get Clancy Brown to come back for the sequel. Clancy read the script and was like...wtf is this shit?
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I think its a bit more understandable when you consider Highlander was a bit of a sleeper cult hit, it wasn't really a total bomb at the cinema but it didn't make its budget back and like several films from that era became popular more on VHS and TV showings. By the time the second film was made it had built up some popularity but I would argue not really reached the level it had a few years latter so its perhaps more understandable they used it to push a largely unconnected(outside of Lambert and Connery) sci fi action film.

First pop culture reference to Highlander I remember was a Flaming Lips song from 1992....

 
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Fedorgasm said:
The accents don't make sense at all. Lambert never has a Scottish accent, even before he "dies" for the first time. He didn't know he was immortal and he lived his entire life in Scotland, so why wouldn't he have a Scottish accent at that time?

If he lost that accent after living in other countries for a hundred years then fine. That makes sense.

The truth is that Lambert is just a terrible actor. Connery is great but not as a Spaniard. They should've just altered the script to make him originally from somewhere in the UK.

The rest of the movie is really good though. And it's a great premise. This is the one movie where I'd welcome a reboot.
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he actually had a hint of an accent in Scotland. It's clearly a forced accent but it's apparent see around 3:10
 
Halifax said:
The first season is pretty cookie cutter. Duncan meets bad guy, beheads him, next episode.

After that the show fleshes out in its own direction well
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Season one the show really hadn't discovered itself yet but still had a great early 90's straight to VHS charm about it that I really love. The episode where he fights the mountain men(the Beastmaster actor) has my favorite fight scene in the whole series there in the end with the axe. That was so savage. It's a cookie cutter formula but it's one that works for me, the show did a good job of the simple task of building up the bad guy and building up the final showdown. There were a few fights in there were Duncan was in serious trouble of losing, probably closer than he ever came in the seasons after. Grayson was also a great 1 time character. Even the bad episodes of season 1 I like plus I noticed a lot of little things foreshadowing everything that happened with Richie later in the next season, it was a much better written show than what I remembered loving as a kid.

Season 2 starts off amazing, peak of the show with some of my favorite episodes. Then it really drags with a bad stretch of some of the worst episodes of the series before picking up and finishing ok.

Season 3 is where the show really hit it's stride and became like one of the coolest things going at that time in the 90's. The episode where Duncan unleashes the dark quickening from his Shaman friend he has to fight, then turns evil and wreaks a bunch of havoc like a bad ass villain before killing one of his best friends, then has to fight himself after recovering his family's sword(from the first episode of the season where he goes back to Scotland to find it), the spirit of his friend that he killed helps him defeat his own evil self in a mirror image showdown. That is really fucking bad ass shit right there brother. Some of my favorite 90's TV ever. Also just don't know if it gets any cooler than the origin story episode for his dragon head handle katana from that same season where it shows him in feudal Japan how he got it.

Season 4 started off good too and has the peak episodes the Four Horsemen two parter, easily better than any of the movies including the 1st one. Methos becomes one of the best things about the whole deal, a 3,000 year old immortal from the bronze age, just awesome.

The Four Horsemen season 4 episodes were like the mid-season finale and after that the show was really dead, the rest of those episodes in season 4 was like jump the shark stuff. I think that season was 1997 and the show's decline matches an observation I've always had about how cool things from the 90's really kind of died out in the transition from 1996 to 1997. With Highlander the series being from 1992 seemed like one of the coolest things ever in 1996, but by 1997 seemed like a dated relic from a previous era, that was how fast that decade moved.

Season 5 pretend it doesn't exist, shhhhhh.

Throughout the show you get some pretty spectacular sword fight scene choreography and the opening intros never get old. Also love all the drop in special guest 90's actors like the one bad ass from Last Of Mohicans, Beastmaster, Randall "Tex" Cobb, several others I'm just not remembering I watched through the whole series last September and really really loved it.
 
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shinobimusashi said:
Season one the show really hadn't discovered itself yet but still had a great early 90's straight to VHS charm about it that I really love. The episode where he fights the mountain men(the Beastmaster actor) has my favorite fight scene in the whole series there in the end with the axe. That was so savage.
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Marc Singer would have been a good secondary villain...the guy Connor or Ramirez or Kurgan has to get through on the way to the final boss in the Highlander prequels they should have made in the late 80s and/or early 90s.

He did a good job of carrying the V miniseries.

He was a much better actor than some of the other C-level action stars of the day like Michael Dudikoff or Lorenzo Lamas. Or Chuck Norris for that matter.
 
shinobimusashi said:
Season one the show really hadn't discovered itself yet but still had a great early 90's straight to VHS charm about it that I really love. The episode where he fights the mountain men(the Beastmaster actor) has my favorite fight scene in the whole series there in the end with the axe. That was so savage. It's a cookie cutter formula but it's one that works for me, the show did a good job of the simple task of building up the bad guy and building up the final showdown. There were a few fights in there were Duncan was in serious trouble of losing, probably closer than he ever came in the seasons after. Grayson was also a great 1 time character. Even the bad episodes of season 1 I like plus I noticed a lot of little things foreshadowing everything that happened with Richie later in the next season, it was a much better written show than what I remembered loving as a kid.

Season 2 starts off amazing, peak of the show with some of my favorite episodes. Then it really drags with a bad stretch of some of the worst episodes of the series before picking up and finishing ok.

Season 3 is where the show really hit it's stride and became like one of the coolest things going at that time in the 90's. The episode where Duncan unleashes the dark quickening from his Shaman friend he has to fight, then turns evil and wreaks a bunch of havoc like a bad ass villain before killing one of his best friends, then has to fight himself after recovering his family's sword(from the first episode of the season where he goes back to Scotland to find it), the spirit of his friend that he killed helps him defeat his own evil self in a mirror image showdown. That is really fucking bad ass shit right there brother. Some of my favorite 90's TV ever. Also just don't know if it gets any cooler than the origin story episode for his dragon head handle katana from that same season where it shows him in feudal Japan how he got it.

Season 4 started off good too and has the peak episodes the Four Horsemen two parter, easily better than any of the movies including the 1st one. Methos becomes one of the best things about the whole deal, a 3,000 year old immortal from the bronze age, just awesome.

The Four Horsemen season 4 episodes were like the mid-season finale and after that the show was really dead, the rest of those episodes in season 4 was like jump the shark stuff. I think that season was 1997 and the show's decline matches an observation I've always had about how cool things from the 90's really kind of died out in the transition from 1996 to 1997. With Highlander the series being from 1992 seemed like one of the coolest things ever in 1996, but by 1997 seemed like a dated relic from a previous era, that was how fast that decade moved.

Season 5 pretend it doesn't exist, shhhhhh.

Throughout the show you get some pretty spectacular sword fight scene choreography and the opening intros never get old. Also love all the drop in special guest 90's actors like the one bad ass from Last Of Mohicans, Beastmaster, Randall "Tex" Cobb, several others I'm just not remembering I watched through the whole series last September and really really loved it.
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I think you mixed up seasons there.

Season 1 cookie cutter
Season 2 watchers
Season 3, kalas methos intro
Season 4, dark quickening more methos
Season 5 more methos, 4 horsemen

Season 6, we pretend didn't happen lol

Seasons 3 and 4 were the peak IMO. 5 had some great episodes but more wiener episodes and terrible finale vs demon thing lol
 
PBAC said:
well probably not but I was rewatching this a while ago and thought the cinematography was exceptional. i can't find the scene but there's a scene Ramirez is knocked down in sparring and his Katana appears to be sticking into him from the side. It's a form of foreshadowing I didn't notice at the time. The actors have unsuitable weird accents which I always thought was strange but makes a hell of a lot more sense when you remember they are immortal and likely wouldn't adopt standard accents anyway. Mcleod's accent pretty much sounds like what you'd expect a world travelling immortal to sound like. The whole look and design of Ramirez also looks like a dude who just stopped giving a shit. On top of that you have the soundtrack and the scenery/coloring is very well shot

Highlander%202.jpg
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Great Movie
 
Christopher Lambert didn't speak engrish when he took the role. Also the Kurgan was the Crab from Spongebob.
 
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