Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

"Most people have a full measure of life... and most people just watch it slowly drip away. But if you can summon it all up... at one time... in one place... you can accomplish something... glorious." - Ramirez

"Okay, now let me just see if I can get this straight. You come from another planet, and you're mortal there, but you're immortal here until you kill all the guys from there who have come here... and then you're mortal here... unless you go back there, or some more guys from there came here, in which case you become immortal here... again." - Louise

"Enough of this useless banter, I will be on my way and leave you to converse with your skull. Farewell, dear shithead, farewell." - Ramirez

Alright. Where to start with this piece of shit? Don't get me wrong-- I respect a movie's right to absolutely suck as much as anybody. I gush about bad flicks. But this one is in a category filed in outer space somewhere. Literally. Someone thought it was a good idea to basically completely throw out the origin story of the Highlanders from the first flick and revamp it and make it like they were from space and throw in a couple of flying Hawkman bad guys that look like they're from THE fucking MATRIX. You like grade "A" dogshit? Strap in. Christopher Lambert, Michael Ironside, and Sean Connery in HIGHLANDER II: THE QUICKENING!!!

So, we start off with an okay premise. Connor MacLeod won "the prize" at the end of the first movie. That means that along with gaining all the knowledge available on Earth and becoming one with every man, woman, child, and animal and basically being all powerful, he has also earned the right to grow old. He chose to do so with his wife, but by the mid 90's she was dying with cancer because the ozone layer was really messed up. He promised to help fix this problem and starts a corporation with a bunch of scientists that covers the earth in a "shield" and saves the humans from the sun's harmful rays. The only problem is that now Earth is in a perpetual state of darkness, and twenty years down the road the people and the general way of life has declined to the point of madness. The shield is governed by an evil corporation that makes huge profits off of the people just to keep them safe from the sun. 
Connor MacLeod is now an old man and much like him watching wrestling in the beginning of the first flick, here we find him watching a performance of one of Wagner's operas. Here's where shit go completely mental. All of a sudden, Connery's character (a Spanish Egyptian played by a Scotsman) Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez comes to him and he remembers a flashback from his past. Apparently somewhere on a planet called Zeist, Ramirez is telling a bunch of members of a rebellion that he's choosing a great warrior from their ranks to battle some bad guy named Katana. Just then Katana's forces bust up the party, kill everyone but Ramirez and MacLeod and sentence them to go to Earth and compete for "the prize". Now if you are at all a fan of the first movie and you watch this sequence, you are saying to yourself, "WHAT are they talking about?" This makes absolutely NO SENSE whatsoever. They are aliens? What the fuck was that "there can be only one" shit about then??? 
So this chick named Louise is a terrorist (?) who wants to take down the shield. Several groups have been trying unsuccessfully to do the same thing. She goes to meet with MacLeod who claims his days of saving the world are over. Meanwhile Katana decides to send these 2 hawkmen matrix goons on flying skateboards to kill MacLeod so that he can't come home to his home planet of Zeist. MacLeod easily kills these ugly mothers and then gets "the quickening" again and becomes young. He's furious about it, but uses it to his advantage because he hasn't even known that chick Louise for an hour and he takes her panties down right there in the alley and bangs her. Its been several months since I've seen this, but I'm quite sure that's how it happens. That means one of four things: He's smooth, OR, she's a slut, OR, this is written TERRIBLY, OR, I'm completely remembering that part wrong. But I think I'm right. She's gotta be a huge slut. Ok, also- SOMEHOW while he was re-quickening, he says Ramirez's name and that gives him the power to resurrect? How did he not know that already? Besides, this is so crazy, if he had all the powers of a god, he could do what he wanted anyway. Correct? Who the fuck knows? So Ramirez comes back to life in the middle of a production of Hamlet, buys an awesome expensive suit with his earring and has enough bread left over to fly to NYC. Plus since the matrix goons failed, General Katana decides to come to Earth and battle MacLeod himself. 
So we get another half hour of REALLY BAD one-liners from Katana and then he goes to team up with the evil corpo dudes in charge over at the Shield. They think somehow that they can hold the world hostage with the notion that shutting it off will blow up the Earth. Or something. That's the thing, Louise found out that the sky repaired the ozone on its on, but the Shield corp was basically holding the Earth people hostage by taking their bread for a promise that was a lie. Let's move on to the spoiler warning. If you haven't already watched it, I'm not going to recommend you do, but if you plan on it: SPOILER WARNING **************************************************** Somehow after defeating Katana, MacLeod just walks into the room where the shield is, and basically walks into the light and it breaks it. THAT'S IT!!! That's all he had to do??!! Then the chick sees the stars for the first time and according to which version you actually watch (there are like NINE of them) he takes her and flies back to his stupid goddamn made up planet. Being the fan of the first film that I am, I never need to see this again, and I recommend skipping to the third if you're going to go deep into Highlander territory. Maybe the catchphrase for this one should be: THERE SHOULD BE ONLY ONE... MOVIE. 

Sunday, March 16, 2014