The Highlander Store

The Video & DVD Highlander - 10th Anniversary Edition This is only about $10. Highlander: The Series, Ep. 1 & 2 - The...Highlander:The Series Vol.1 These are the first two episodes of the cult hit TV show, that has Connor meeting fan-favorite Duncan.  Here's where they attempt (I guess successfully) to mesh the movie together with all the sequels it spawned - Interesting for a flick that ended so conclusively. - CDM	The Books Highlander Highlander: The Complete Watcher's Guide This works out of the mythology created by the TV show.	Soundtrack Highlander: The Original Scores A Kind Of Magic - Queen Most of the songs on this album were either in Highlander or written during the Highlander sessions. Titles like "Don't lose your head" should prove it to you cynics.- CDM
DVD Highlander - 10th Anniversary Director's Cut	Highlander Collector's Pack This is not all the movies, but just the first two, Highlander and Highlander II:  The Sickening... uh, sorry, The Quickening. - CDM	Flash Gordon (Soundtrack) - Queen More Sci-Fi contributions from Queen. - CDM

Ever-Debatable Cult Classics:  Highlander
by Christian De Matteo

Wimpy

        Mine, I'm sure, will not be a popular opinion.  I am well of aware of the massive cult following Highlander has accrued since its release in the 80s.  I only saw it recently, due to Mike's firm belief that I shouldn't be allowed to live if I didn't see it.  Mike and I are both huge fans of sword fighting movies, simply because they're cool.  He thought that I would therefore love one of the most classic ones.  Alas, I didn't.

           I didn't hate it.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the man responsible for two of my very favorite movies was the creator, Gregory Widen.  Backdraft and The Prophecy are both astoundingly well written movies that I have seen more times than I can count, and it is the great Mr. Widen who wrote both and also directed the latter.  Granted, he also allowed Dimension Films to completely destroy the series with two painfully asinine sequels to Prophecy, but the first one stands firmly on its own.  Highlander seems like a practice round for Widen to get his mythology-creating chops going so he could later create the world of Prophecy.

          The movie has all the elements of a great adventure film, but Widen's writing is still immature.  That coupled with a horribly small budget, a first-time film director (Russell Mulcahy) and Christopher Lambert's acting, spells disaster.  I would love to see Widen remake the movie today with all he's learned since, with a huge budget and the mythology firmly in place in his head, as well as the director's chair firmly in place under his rear.  I can almost guarantee that if he gave it his all, it would be one of my favorite movies ever, just because I know his skill and imagination.

         I didn't give the movie a Pathetic rating, because I certainly don't believe it deserves that.  The movie is ambitious and tries it's best.  As far as a first time effort goes, it's very good.  But it doesn't come anywhere near the scale of his later work (though maybe it does the later work of Lambert).  The film moves slowly and clumsily and the acting is awkward.  On the upside, Sean Connery is fun to watch in a somewhat extravagant role and Beatie Edney is beautiful as Connor's sexy Highland wife.

        Because it's a classic, I certainly recommend that people check it out, if not for anything else but to find out where the TV show they love came from.  Prophecy fans would also do well to watch it, just for the sake of seeing where the seeds for the movie they love so much were spawned.  Widen's been itching to start a fantasy war between worlds for a very long time.  The movie is a good rainy Sunday afternoon adventure, but not a great film.  Enjoy it for what it is and for what it has become, but please don't expect a time-traveling Braveheart.

High Lambert:  Highlander

by Michael Flanagan

Solid

                Highlander is the best movie ever made.

            Now, to get on with the rest of the review.  I’m not sure, but I think, with that first sentence, I just qualified myself for a world-record.  (Has anyone ever written that before?)  No, Highlander is not a great movie.  But it does have one all-important necessary characteristic: Cool sword fighting scenes

            A movie about immortal swordsmen chopping off heads should include some damn good swordplay.  Only in this film can you see a man in reflective sunglasses and a business suit battle with a man in blue jeans and sneakers in a car garage.  Also, the sword fights feature the all-important pointless special effects:  sparks flying off of blades just because they touch each other or something else metallic.  Sure, sparks happen when metal collides with metal, but in a good sword fight, in a Highlander sword fight, they spark practically when they brush up against a cement wall.  But that’s what makes it fun.

            Christopher Lambert as the hero seems at times ridiculous.  (We’ll forget that this film is probably the high point of his career.  One might say the film has immortalized him.)  His accent is sometimes distracting, and his acting sometimes brings to mind a high school play.  Fortunately, he is given a villain who deserves just as much ridicule:  Clancy Brown as The Kurgan.  He speaks with a deep gravelly voice and uses his eyes, nose, mouth, and tongue to be as disgusting as possible.  He’s more comically gross than evil, but either way, in the end, his death is irrelevant.  No character is really developed, and the ending is scratched for the sequels and the successful television show

            The Queen music adds an interesting element to the watching of Highlander.  With obvious 80’s hair and clothes, silly accents, cheap Braveheart-esque flashbacks, and one nude sex scene, the music completes the movie and makes it the perfect background party film.  It’s nice to have on the screen, people will comment on it, but no one will leave the party to watch it.

Mark's Movie Info.:

Queen did movie music?  Yes, indeed!  They wrote some songs for Highlander, and they did the entire score for Flash Gordon (the 80's version).

Does Conner MacLeod's castle home look familiar to you? It might if you're a Monty Python fan. It is the same castle that they used for the interior shots for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Can't place Christopher Lambert's accent?  Believe it or not, that is intentional.  He worked with a speech coach to acquire an accent that is European, but cannot be pegged to one particular country.  This would make sense for an immortal who has been bumming around Europe for the past so-and-so hundred years.

Various other versions of Highlander include a WWII flashback sequence showing MacLeod rescuing Rachael, where he tells her "It's a kind of magic". It's a kind of magic is the name of the Queen album where you can hear the songs they used in the film.

Deleted scenes include a sequence with Kurgan fighting in an office building with an immortal security guard named Yung Dol Kim. Kim's tired of his immortal life, so he surrenders to Kurgan who chops off his head and ends it. 

The castle that the MacLeods leave in early scenes is called Eilean Donnan, or MacRae castle. Above the door is a friendly plaque which reads "Whenever there is a MacRae inside there will never be a Fraser outside." Ironically, the MacLeods are going off to battle the Frasers.