By Nik Rasmussen– It’s time for you to lock your doors, close your blinds, grab a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the ride. This is Morningside movie reviews, the only place you can find real movies instead of digging through crap; so sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
On March 7, 1986, director Russell Mulch gave viewers a story that would stand through the ages. Originally created by writer Gregory Widen, Highlander is a British-American action-fantasy film. Christopher Lambert, well known for his work in Mortal Kombat and Fortress, is Connor MacLeod, an immortal fighting in an eternal battle against other immortals for “the prize”.
Starting off with an awesome introduction read by Sir Sean Connery (best known for his role as James Bond in the 1960’s, 70’s and early 80’s and the role of Indiana Jones’s father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) we find MacLeod in the crowd of a wrestling event in Madison Square Garden. After four and a half centuries of roaming the earth, little has changed for MacLeod. People are still people and memories of out living loved ones and losing friends weigh heavily on his mind. In the parking garage, MacLeod is ambushed by a rival Immortal and engages in a sudden sword fight in that awesome old school way. A police technician named Brenda Wyatt (played by Roxanne Hart), fascinated by forensic dating on fragments of MacLeod’s katana found at the scene, dates the artifact it as being over 2000 years old, far older than other katanas. Wyatt begins to investigate MacLeod, ending up in the middle of a dispute between MacLeod and his greatest enemy that also involves the police.
Meanwhile, one Immortal, the Kurgan (played by Clancy Brown) feared above the rest searches for MacLeod while murdering, raping and pillaging anything in his way, the Kurgan. Since the beginning of MacLeod’s immortal life in Scout land, the Kurgan has been fixated on killing him. It was this fixation of the Kurgan’s that drove Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez (an elder Immortal played by Sean Connery) to train MacLeod in the secret art of the sword. As the eternal battle of the ages clashes on between MacLeod and the Kurgan, we learn more about humanity and how our lives are like a lit candle in the night eventually reaching the end by morning.
Highlander (1986) is one of the must-have movies for your collection. However, I strongly advise against watching any of the other Highlander films or series. This was one of those movies whose story was spent by the end of the original, and it never should have had sequels. With that said, out of all the other renditions, the animated movie is the next best.
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