Highlander II: The Quickening
Directed by Russell Mulcahy
- fantasy
- action
- adventure
- science fiction
The story
The Prize has been won. Connor MacLeod is mortal... Now an old man on the verge of death, memories of his past on the planet Zeist resurface, where a vengeful enemy, General Katana, plots to destroy him once and for all.
What it’s like
Hazy, overlit and strange, with the washed-out gleam of a 1990s studio fantasy: smoky Scottish highlands rendered as storm-grey sets, a cold industrial New York in flat blue-green, and a futuristic dome world on Zeist bathed in unnatural pinks and sickly greens. Camera work is fast and busy, with swooping crane moves, quick cuts and frequent sword duels filmed in loud, clattering close-up, while the score swells in big synth-orchestral surges that keep pushing the mood into bombast. The vibe is earnest, campy and sometimes bewildering, a cult oddity with more ambition than control. Its violence is steady and stylised: frequent swordplay with bloodless-to-moderate wounds, a few sharp deaths, no sustained gore, and a sexual frankness that stays brief and tasteful. Pacing lurches between slow, talky stretches and sudden action set pieces, and the emotional register swings from solemn melancholy about mortality to goofy spectacle. It suits a late-night watch with friends, a cheerfully ironic rewatch, or anyone who enjoys sword-and-sorcery kitsch and doesn't mind a film that's messy, earnest and gloriously odd.
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