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All the emphasis on technology, alas, cannot disguise the fact that Highlander II is even more of a mess from a storytelling standpoint than its forbear. The story incorporates everything from corporate greed to an earth in ecological crisis and from environmental terrorists to explosions (er, quickenings) that seemingly level entire city blocks. When the highlight of a film is the impression that one particular scene sets a film record for the most shattered glass ever, perhaps it’s better to focus on what the actors bring to their parts...

...which would be the case if the actors actually had characters to embody, and if their performances were notable for the right reasons. Christopher Lambert’s attempt at portraying the broken-down and aged MacLeod in the film’s opening third plays like his misbegotten tribute to Brando’s Don Vito Corleone. Lambert mumbles and shuffles and sighs at the heavens and confuses being a character with playing a character. When he is restored to his youth (and immortal status), Lambert indulges his repertoire of smirks to no end.

Virginia Madsen, as the terrorist who uncovers a shocking truth about the state of the planet, strikes interesting notes for a few scenes. These all go out the window when, within five minutes of meeting MacLeod for the first time, they engage in the most unmotivated cinematic kamikaze fuck I have ever dropped my jaw to (and yes, I am considering the equally loony Jean-Claude Van Damme/Natasha Henstridge sink coupling in Maximum Risk when I make that bold statement).

I am a big fan of the intense cheesiness that Michael Ironside can bring to a role that calls for it, but he flails playing the perversely masochistic General Katana. Compared to the over-the-top-gusto that Clancy Brown brought to the villain in the first Highlander, Ironside’s is somehow too much but not enough. And Sean Connery? Sigh. Starring in the first film was fine as a prelude to his Oscar-winning role in The Untouchables, but here he’s in it for the paycheck and the script doesn’t even attempt to deny it. Two-thirds of his role consists of interrupting a performance of Hamlet, getting fitted for a new outfit, and flying in a plane from Scotland to the U.S., suggesting to his female companion that she sit on his face.

And for all the face-lifting and revising that have gone in to make Highlander II a more visually arresting experience, it still comes across as the prototypically grungy and bleak future dystopia, like a third-rate Xerox of Blade Runner. What’s notably disappointing is that for a few minutes at the beginning, Mulcahy seems primed to deliver something special. The camera circles around the interior of the opera house where MacLeod is in attendance and the soar of that uncut tracking shot is positively life affirming. But then the story kicks in, the first of many flashbacks commence, Lambert opens his mouth, and any “kind of magic” goes right out the window. I do find it an interesting observation that Highlander II includes opera, jazz, blues, a quick nod to Queen on a jukebox, even the unmistakable pipes of Lou Gramm for the closing credits tune, but that the musical hodgepodge in no way competes with an overdose of Freddie Mercury.

To return to that making of documentary one last time, my heart finds it hard to truly lash out at a film where the production crew speaks so fondly of their experience, even as they confirm what hell it was. None of them set out to make a bad movie: the costumer, the set designer, the cameraman, and the VFX creator. And, as reviled as it still seems to be two decades later, it led to two more films and video games and a television series that ran for six seasons. Just imagine what could have happened had it been any good.

Next time: Pop quiz. You are making a sequel to one of the great action films of the '90s and you want to mix things up. What do you do hotshot? What do you do? You set the action on a cruise ship of course.

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