It has come to my attention that there is a film that is being overlooked by film schools, scholars, and critics in this country and around the world. A film that stands out in a crowd and is so unlike anything else we've ever seen that people fail to notice it.
That movie is Highlander 2: The Quickening.
I know what you've heard. Hell, you may have even seen the damn thing and just not known what to make of it. We fear change and tend to reject such revolutionary ideas. That's why I'm here: to guide you down the path of righteousness, allowing you to experience the quickening yourself.
Let's start with the plot, or rather the plot hole. The writers had to know they were up a tree when they were asked to write a sequel to a film whose story was wrapped up in a neat little package. No room for an evil twin or a forgotten immortal; Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) was the only one left and he had gotten his "prize" (as lame as it was).
So what do the writers do? They elect to throw out every aspect of the first film and create what has to be the most ridiculous idea since the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi.
"See, they aren't just immortal, they're aliens too!"
"Yeah, that's great! But why are they here?"
"Hmm... that's a problem."
And so the great Plot Hole opened. Just a tiny crack in the earth into which a seed was planted. The seed was hungry and the writers were more than happy to feed the Hole.
"We'll say they were banished from their planet for being rebels and they all have to fight until there is only one and that guy can choose to live out his life or go back to their home planet... uh... Zeist."
"But how come nobody knew about that in the first movie?"
"Hmmm... I got it! Their memories were blanked out. That way they won't have any trouble killing each other, because they won't remember if they were friends or not."
"Well, I... No! You're right, it's great, let's go."
Now that's a pretty big hole you've got there. You can see how they were just piling one thing onto another. But this is just to get the movie started. Next comes the girl.
"Now we've got to have a chick. And it can't be the girl from the first one 'cause she's old."
"Okay, we'll introduce a new chick."
"Fine, but she's got to be more than just a chick."
"Why?"
"People just don't dig chicks being chicks anymore."
"Fine, let's give her a cause."
And at that moment, the eyes of one of the writers, or perhaps both at the same time, glanced at a newspaper with a little article about the ozone layer and its hole. The lightbulb went on over each head and they just added the ozone hole to their own Hole.
"Great, but this is the future, won't they have solved it?"
"Yeah. Hey! We can have McLeod solve it! That will give them something in common."
What happened next is pretty hard to foresee. How these two Ed Wood proteges came up with putting a giant shield around the Earth that would keep out the sun, keep in the humidity, and somehow cause everything on earth to go back to the old days (old cars, planes with propellors, etc.) is beyond even this theorist.
Regardless, they did it. At this point, the Plot Hole in Highlander 2 is so big it's talking to these two, making its own demands.
It's pretty difficult for me to think in the same way the Hole must have. The Hole is just beyond me, beyond us all. And, damn, it was hungry for more!
Maybe it was the writers or the Hole or some contractual obligation, but somehow Ramirez (Sean Connery) arrives on the scene. Now anyone who has seen the first film knows that Connery was decapitated and that means it's all over—right? The Hole had other ideas and Connery returned, but not right to McLeod, no, that would be too easy. Instead, Connery's soul bounces off the ozone shield that McLeod invented (see how this film starts to take on a symmetry? It's fascinating). Connery being lost paved the way for a bizarre Shakespeare scene and the funniest part of the whole (Hole?) movie, the safety film on the airplane. We're talking high comedy here, ladies and gentlemen.
The Hole was pretty big by now. Okay, it was huge. All that was missing was a bad guy. Enter Michael Ironside, generic antagonist, doing his best impression of the Joker. He's hated McLeod for almost a millennium and, yet, doesn't look a day over 35. How? That question has no meaning in the face of the Hole.
The rest is really a sight to see. It's too much to go into unless I were to write a book. But that doesn't mean I don't have more to say. This article has turned into a Hole itself, demanding to be written, demanding to move beyond plot summary and to a new level, the level of criticism.
When Highlander 2 came out, fellow critic Roger Ebert put it on his number one worst film of the year. And he was right. And he was wrong. Most people seem to think that being the worst is a bad thing and most of the time it is—but not this time. Highlander 2 really is one of the worst films of all time, but in the best way; the film is perfectly imperfect and wears it as a badge of honor.
Every aspect of the film is wrong. Every rule of good storytelling, filmmaking, acting, and even common sense are thrown out the window. It takes a lot of courage to do something like this. Few people have. Highlander 2 finds its home among the works of Godard and Hudson Hawk. Highlander 2 pulls out all the stops and what happens is an explosion of just plain wrongness, and therein lies the greatness.
Most films just have a few holes here and there but this film went for something more and succeeded—it actually became the Hole.
The tragedy of Highlander 2 is that few people can appreciate it. They blow it off as trivial or even stupid.
Fools.
I guess it's just too obvious. Maybe it's because the film never ceases to take itself seriously. Maybe it's because people just don't buy "I'm Connor McLeod of the Clan McLeod. I was banished from the planet Zeist nine hundred years ago and I cannot die" as a pick-up line. But, folks, I'm here to tell you that for my friend Brian it almost worked!
Now with the new director's cut (the "Renegade Version," which includes fifteen more minutes of Hole), perhaps Highlander 2 will find a new life—I bet it's already popular in France. But as Ramirez says to McLeod before he vanishes, "Who knows, Highlander, who knows?"
Michael Thompson is still living in Chicago where he is trying to decide which is better: Highlander #3 The Magician, The Sorcerer, or The Final Dimension.