If you’ve seen Talladega Nights with Will Ferrell you may recall a scene in which Ricky Bobby (Ferrell) makes reference to Highlander and talks about it winning the academy award for “The Best Movie Ever”. Also having a brother whom is a huge fan of the films, I was excited to sit down and watch this movie with him and see Sean Connery in his hay day. Does the film hold up to time and does it deserve that fictional Oscar?
Films ![]()
The first Highlander is a personal favorite. It is an action-packed sci-fi/fantasy mishmash about a bunch of immortals fighting each other with swords in a quest for “the prize.” The prize is awarded to the last immortal left on Earth because as fans already know, “there can be only one.” The immortals compete in battle and when one is beheaded by another, the victor gains the losers power through a process called the quickening.
Highlander follows the adventures of Connor MacLeod played by Christopher Lambert beginning in Scotland over several hundred years ago when he befriends a fellow immortal named Romirez played by Sean Connery, who introduces Connor to his powers and teaches him how to defend himself, and ends in present day where a gathering of the world’s remaining few immortals in New York City has begun and Connor is forced to face off against an evil arch enemy named Kruger, played by Clancy Brown.
Director Russell Mulcahy packs the movie with plenty of sword fights and lots of Queen on the soundtrack. Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery have good chemistry and share a few good moments and the laughs definitely match the thrills. This movie is a guilty pleasure if I ever saw one, but I’m not too embarrassed about it.
Highlander 2: The Quickening came out five years after the original. The first movie hadn’t been a huge success at the box office, but it had become something of a cult classic. The sequel was plagued with problems during production resulting in the producers cutting the filming process early and removing returning director Russell Mulcahy from the editing room. The theatrical version was a bastardized version of Mulcahy’s original screenplay and the film was met with mostly terrible reviews when it opened. It still randomly appears on many critics’ top ten worst movies ever made lists even today.
A few years after the production, Mulcahy went back and filmed extra scenes and re-edited the movie to closer match what he had originally intended. Initially, the sequel was meant to explain the origins of the immortals a little more by revealing that they were in fact aliens from the planet Zeist. This resulted in more anger from critics and fans alike, so Mulcahy also used this opportunity to remove any mention of Zeist in this new version of the movie simply referred to as “The Renegade Version.” The special effects have been updated as well. This is the version of the movie included on this blu-ray collection.
Although obviously not as good as the original, the sequel does have a lot going for it and is nowhere near as bad as you may have heard. It’s certainly better than some Highlander sequels that have followed and it only started the pattern used by every proceeding sequel of completely ignoring any continuity in story between the movies entirely. There are some great action scenes obviously. It is a joy to see Sean Connery returning as Conner’s mentor Ramirez and he and Christopher Lambert seem to have fun working together during their scenes. Coincidently, the role of Ramirez is the only character outside of James Bond that Sean Connery has played more than once.
The second movie has a very corny sense of humor as well that really works for it. The new version has some improvements, but I wish they hadn’t have tried to erase the alien subplot. It was no less ridiculous than the time traveling patch job they replaced it with thanks to a few small cuts and some re-dubbed dialogue. I’m sure some would disagree, but I really just don’t think it help matters enough to have been worth the effort in the first place. Hopefully, this will finally be the definitive version
Video ![]()
Highlander’s video is displayed using the VC-1 codec and Highlander 2 is displayed using the AVC MPEG-4 codec. I have the original DVD release of this film that I got when it first came out and when I picked up the later edition on DVD and saw the difference in the video quality between the two and I was blown away. The original release seemed to use a dirty print and had a full array of issues including an outrageous amount of grain and noise. When I got this Blu-ray I was excited to compare it to the cleaned up DVD and get a laugh by going back to the original DVD that I own.
The video quality is fantastic considering the previous releases, with some really nice sharpness and very little grain issues. The contrast is at a good level that helps with the clarity, but the black levels aren’t as deep as they could’ve been.
However the first film has quite a few issues that arise, although the film looks really great in comparison to previous releases, there are some sections that are simply bad looking. There are a few shots that are so soft that I thought I was watching the film in standard definition and with a few cases of artefacting here and there it’s really hard to see the merit. It’s miles beyond the original digital release as a whole, but I expected that seeing how a lot of the film seems to have been cleaned up nicely, they wouldn’t spend the money to fix everything.
Highlander 2, being a newer film, shouldn’t have as many issues as the first one. However the film suffer from some banding, stair-stepping and other forms of artefacting throughout. It doesn’t help that the cheap special effects are applied to make the image look even cheaper.
It’s hard to give this film a horrible rating with all of the technical issues, but considering the history of bad releases for these movies I’d say this is probably PARTIALLY the best it’s ever looked…
Audio ![]()
Both Highlander and Highlander 2 use the DTS-HD 5.1 audio codec. HThe audio quality of the films teeters between being a good representation of how the mix sounded back in the day and falling victim to being a mix that is begging to be remastered. The mix is really disproportionate and although the foley sounds are clean, they are simply too emphasized and come off as over-the-top.
The score is loud and distinct as well, and who can complain when we have Queen blasting through the speakers, but the subtleties that differ from films mixed today and back then are very apparent when watching these films.
Dialogue at times is muffled slightly when the mix becomes complicated such as during the fight scenes, but overall it’s clear. The surrounds don’t get much usage due to the fact the mix hasn’t been updated at all to take advantage of the fact that home theatres with advanced audio set-up are commonplace, but the LFE has a bit more to chew on when the booming sound effects go off… for example when a highlander absorbs a defeated enemies power… The audio is definitely a major step-up from the video quality, but nothing about this release is impressive.
Special Features ![]()
The first film’s deleted scenes come sans audio with music playing over top, so that’s a point against them and the only other feature from the first film is the commentary track with director Russell Mulcalhy. Oddly previous DVD releases have had other extras. So seeing that this is supposed to be a anniversary collection, they really skimp in this section. I would say if you have the special edition DVD then you’re pretty much covered considering the lack of new extras.
The second film has a few haphazard featurettes covering things like the music and cinematography and with a few deleted scenes all in SD the blu-ray is not aimed at pleasing fans.
Final Thoughts
Although the films have earned some cult status and are fun watches, this Blu-ray release doesn’t justify a purchase even to the fans. If you own the special edition DVD releases of these films then the first Highlander would be the only film I can recommend rebuying separately due to the fact that the Highlander 2 looks equally as crappy on this Blu-ray release as it did on older releases. Also the fact that previous releases of these movies actually have more extras than this release make this comes down to the technical score and these films don’t make the cut.
