Highlander 2: Renegade Version
In the sequel
to Highlander, the original cast and director are all back to create a
futuristic continuation of the story set in a gothic futuristic world that
resembles Blade Runner and has as many plot holes. But unlike how Blade Runner asked
questions about what makes us human and what are emotions, Highlander 2
is about sunburns. It seems that the
ozone layer was ruined and hordes of people, including Connor MacLeod’s love
interest from the first film, had their faces melted off. Instead of wearing hats and sunscreen, they
did the more practical thing and built a giant beam that comes out of a big
industrial complex in America and forms a forcefield
around the whole world. Kinda like the Death Star in reverse, although the people
who operate it still dress like fascists.
It’s never
explored how other countries pay for the shield’s service. Do they get a deal like how Americans pay
more for pharmaceuticals than poorer countries?
If you miss a payment do they roast you a bit to let you know you’re overdue? Does America even need an army in a future
where if another country pisses them off they can just shut off the shield over
them and melt them away? So many unanswered questions.
It turns out
that Connor MacLeod actually designed the shield. I guess, like Queen guitarist Brian May, Connor stopped listening to Queen (who
did the soundtrack for the first movie) and got into a second career in
science. The movie opens in the
futuristic world of 2024 where Connor is now an old man who is starting to doubt
whether he did the right thing. Probably because people attack him on the streets and in bars
calling him “the man who ruined the planet”. Everybody’s really pissed because even though
they can go outside and live their lives without their faces melting off in a
stew of tumors, they miss the look of the old blue
sky. You see, in their effort to save
humanity from extinction through mass cancer, Connor and his science buddies
forgot to make the solution pretty. So
it’s always night and the sky is always an infrared wave. He should’ve gone with a nice screensaver of
an aquarium or a slideshow of kids dressed up like kittens or something. So I guess now the whole planet is suffering
from Seasonal Depression Disorder and that makes them pretty cranky towards the
guy who saved their lives.
What’s
worse than living in a future where there are no new Queen songs on the
soundtrack? Connor is now mortal and old
and not the samurai sword-packing maniac immortal he was in the previous film. So he has to put up with all the shit and
abuse without the smug satisfaction of knowing he’d outlive them like those
asshole cops in the first movie.
But of course
we know this isn’t going to be an On Golden Pond Blade Runner deal for
the whole movie and that stuff ends quickly when two henchmen of the main
villain from the distant immortal realm show up to assassinate Connor. A pretty good action sequence ensues and
Connor as an old man kills them, and then the quickening happens and he emerges
from a cloud of smoke as a revitalized young man and instantly starts having
sex up against the outside of a building with an eco-terrorist he just met
moments before. It’s kinda
like if Steven Seagal directed a Viagra
commercial. By the way, I had no idea
what huge sluts eco-terrorists were.
Now, these henchman did that whole cackle while fighting to
show you’re crazy thing, just like how the Kurgen
was always laughing in the first film.
But these two guys have really high-pitched cackles and it’s kinda annoying, but I think that was the point. But then the main villain, Katana, shows up
and he’s another one of these laughers.
There’s just way too much laughing in this movie. You know how The Joker in that new Batman
movie keeps asking “Why so serious?”, he’s one cackly
sonofabitch, but I think if he were in this movie
even he’d probably actually switch to asking “What the fuck is so goddamn
funny?”
Like I said, I
get that it can show you’re crazy to laugh while you kill a guy, but I think
when you pick a dude up off the floor by his nuts, crush his nuts with
accompanying cracking sound, then throw him by his crushed nuts out a high rise
window, laughing and grinning about it is just overkill, even if it is John C.
McGinley who’s nuts you’re abusing (which it was).
Anyway, Connor
joins up with eco-terrorists who are morally opposed to the space shield
because they think, based on no data as far as I can tell, that it might no
longer be necessary and that people are kinda getting
ripped off paying for it. So this is
more of a cranky taxpayer revenge story, though it’s kinda
dressed up to seem more like one of those underground
resistance versus the facists kinda movie. But we
all know that selling people shit they may not need is a threat to the very
capitalist foundations of our society, and implementing a public safety
initiative that goes against the preference of a small fringe violent minority
is an affront to democracy, so that shield shit must be stopped, and only
Connor and his eco-terrorist girlfriend can do it!
So Katana
laughs a whole bunch more; he even does more crazy shit to show he’s a crazy
shit but just comes across as a bully doing things such as destroying the taxi
of a cabbie who offers to set him up on a date with his sister; we get a road
trip with Connor and his new eco-terrorist girlfriend; we get more action movie
scenes that seem like bizarre Viagra commercials when Sean Connery’s
resurrected character, Ramirez, joins the mile high club; and just way too much
goofy heartfelt bullshit on film to deny that Highlander 2 has its
merits. I think the nail in the craptasterpiece coffin happens when Ramirez uses all his lifeforce to jam up the blades of a fan while Amazing Grace
plays on the bagpipes. Dude, you don’t
need to use up your whole lifeforce to jam up a fan,
I jammed up some fan blades with a carrot when I was a kid. My mum was not impressed.
The movie also
ends Blade Runner: The Final Cut style by
looping in a quotation that somebody just said two minutes earlier in the
film. Only this time the quotation
they’re re-using at the end doesn’t even fit in context of the ending and kinda doesn’t make sense.
But honestly, I have no idea what ending could’ve turned this thing
around. Maybe Katana laughing himself to
death like the weasels in Who Framed Roger
Rabbit?
This movie is
definitely haute trash, and like I said, I can’t help but admire it. What surprises me more is that the version I
saw was a “renegade version” on DVD which apparently fixes several problems
with the original theatrical cut, which I find hard to imagine. I actually like the futuristic setting, and
the idea of Connor MacLeod fighting against a world he helped create is really
good, but I think they should’ve actually made it a full-on dictatorship or at
least show that the space shield was starting to harm people and the company
was covering it up or something. As is,
Connor’s fight to save the average taxpayer a few bucks and let the world get
back to its tanning is admirable, but not exactly a riveting cause worthy of an
underground resistance and all this shit.
Highlander 2’s got dudes swordfighting
while hang gliding in the streets, which wasn’t in other corporate
accountability themed dramas such as The Bad Sleep Well or Michael
Clayton, but at the same time, this movie kinda
fails to have the resonance or relevance of those other movies.
Also this movie
kinda works better as a standalone film. All the stuff in this film about MacLeod and
Ramirez’s relationship directly contradicts how their friendship built up over the
first film, as well as Connor’s self-discovery as an immortal. And we definitely need a cap on how much
cackling there can be in one movie. So I
think with a different portrayal of the villains and a more noble or urgent
quest for Connor this could’ve been a really good alternate Highlander
movie. But in its present form, I’m kinda glad it’s out there because it’s impressively crappy.
If you liked this, maybe you’ll enjoy
these other renegade articles:
There can be only one.
(current sequel count: 4)
A film with only one ball.
Winner of the
lifetime disgrace award for Mila Jovovich.