'Highlander' --A Review

Small, wee confession kids: I'd never seen this movie. I knew this series has a devoted cult following but I'd only seen bits and pieces of it, usually involving Christopher Lambert running around a glen with Sean Connery. Now, having seen it, I can understand why it's got fans- the excessive sword fighting alone appeals to several nerd demographics, myself included. (I've been cursing myself for not going on the Spain trip in high school. Everyone always stopped at Toledo. And always brought back swords.)

So what's the deal with Highlander? Basically, Connor Macleod (played by Christopher Lambert, who I guess is an American born French actor who ends up sounded more German than Scottish a lot of the time. Go figure) is a Scottish highlander from the 14th Century who discovers that he's immortal. With the help of Sean Connery (playing an Egyptian named Ramirez. Go figure again.) he learns the 4-1-1 on the whole being immortal thing. Basically, there are bunches of immortals running around the place. They can't have children, they can't die and they're all heading towards something towards 'The Gathering' which will decide who wins 'the Prize.' Despite the fact that some of them are BFF's, they're all fated to battle it out for 'the Prize' and the only way to win 'the Prize' and kill an immortal is to decapitate them. So as you can imagine, heads tend to fly in this movie.

In parallel to Macleod's 16th century discovery of his immortality and the consequences of it (he gets banished from his village, has a loving marriage but has to bury the love of his life and gets very lonely as a result) we flash forward to 1980s New York City, where after leaving a pro-wrestling match in Madison Square Garden, he is confronted by an Iman Fasil (Peter Diamond). They fight, Macleod decapitates him and a resulting energy surge wrecks up the parking garage. Macleod almost gets away but the police take him in for questioning which introduces him to Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart), a forensics investigator who's also a specialist in ancient metallurgy and an old enemy the Kurgan (a very menacing Clancy Brown) shows up for the final showdown with Macleod. I'll let you guess how that turns out but it culminates with the obvious and bad-ass assertion on the part of our hero that "There can be only one."

For an 80s movie, this didn't actually seem that dated. Super-bad special effects aside and the arcane forensics equipment that Brenda has to use aside (circa 1986, I guess) the only other thing I noticed was that this movie was backlit to beat hell and there was a lot of smoke and/or fog around the place in conjunction with this- like, everywhere. I know New York is the city that never sleeps and if there were that many floodlights shining through doors, windows, warehouses and generally illuminating the shit out the place and making it seem like noon at midnight that might just explain why. Just saying. Oh and I object to any so-called Scotsman ordering a Glen Morangie on the rocks. Especially since it didn't even come in a whiskey glass. That just ain't right.

Overall: This was decent- maybe even good. I can dig Scottish immortals and decapitations and although there are more movies and a television show lurking somewhere continuing the story, I'd follow Macleod's advice- don't lose your head and remember there can be only one- movie that is. (*** out of ****)