Review of Highlander (1986) by Patrick W — 28 May 2011

Interesting facts.

Highlander was a critical and commercial failure upon release in the US. It made moderate box office overseas but initially didn't recoup it's budget.

Queen also had not achieved an overwhelming amount of success in the US at the time of Highlander's release.

Russell Mulcahy who directed the film was mainly known before that as the director of the first music video to play on MTV. It was "Video killed the radio star" by the Buggles.

Since the film's failure 25 years ago Freddy Mercury has died, Russell Mulcahy has pretty much become a DTV director in the last decade (with the exception being Resident Evil: Extinction), Christopher Lambert works mainly as a producer, there has been four highlander sequels, two television series, a video game, and soon a reboot of the series to be directed by Justin Lin.

I like this film. It's cheesy as hell but it's one of those films that you couldn't predict what was going to happen if you didn't know something about it. If you watched the very beginning you might assume it has something to do with wrestling.

Ten minutes later you'll see a sixty year old man doing backflips in a parking garage during a sword fight. A few minutes later cars appear to come to life as man man seemingly gets struck by lightning .......in a parking garage. a few minutes after that it's five hundred years into the past. A few after that the guy that chopped the off the backflipping geriatric's head is driving full speed through the parking garage in a sweet looking mid fifties Porsche 356 speedster.

It's unpredictable, and if you know someone who claims they knew what was coming from one moment to the next, you can comfortably tell them they're full of shit.