There Can Be Only Only One

While sitting around the house with a bum back. Or rather while laying on the floor with a bum back I decided to give my Bluray collection a bit of a work out. Last night I started in on one of my favorite movies series....The Highlander!

I can still remember the original Highlander (1986) as being the first movie I ever wanted to see based on a tv commercial. The scene from the original where MacCleod  is taking the quickening, after killing the Kurgan, with the windows exploding was permanently seared into my 7 year old brain.

The original had great fight scenes, a great cast, an original idea and a kick ass soundtrack by Queen. When the original film was a hit the studios got to work on a follow up.

Five years after the original we got the abomination that was Highlander 2: The Quickening.

How this movie didn't kill the franchise I have no idea.

The film not only jumps into the distant future of 2025, but we finally find out the true origins of the Immortals. They were fucking aliens from the past of another planet!!  MacCleod and Ramirez were exiled to the future from the planet Zeist for trying to start a rebellion. From there the film never really decides if it is a action film, drama, or an eco friendly diatribe on us killing the planet.

Essentially this movie is just as confused as the viewers who paid to see it at the time.

Somehow three years later someone was able to revive the idea of the immortals battling for the ultimate prize  as a TV show. When the TV show found success Hollywood was convinced to make another feature film.  Christopher Lambert would return for a third go round as the immortal Scotsman. This time there would be no Sean Connery but we would have Mario Van Peebles doing his best to bring back the swagger of the original films villain.

The only way you can watch all the movies is to realize that continuity means nothing...and most importantly, forget the second movie ever happened! Seriously, if you try to figure out how MacCleod won "the prize" in the first film if Van Peebles character was buried under a mountain like we see in the third. Or if you try to figure out why after the second movie that whole train of thought (fucking aliens!) is never mentioned again...you'll never wrap your mind around the series.

Lambert would team up with Adrian Paul (TV's Duncan MacCloed) for the last "good" Highlander film, 2000's Highlander: Endgame. Squeeze in a direct to video movie centered around the characters from the show Highlander: The Source (2007) and a fairly craptastic animated film Highlander: Search for Vengeance.

With a reboot on the horizon it seems the franchise is still alive and well....for now. There can be only one.