Dir. Russell Mulcahy
Writ. Gregory Widen, Peter Bellwood, Larry Ferguson
Act. Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Roxanne Heart, Clancy Brown

One of the all time classic 80's movies, Highlander is one of those movies that people will stop what they are doing to watch it on TV, especially if you were a teenager in the 80's. It had sword fights and decapitations and nudity. There is even a little love for the ladies who could put up with the bad acting and cheesy visual and sound effects. One of its saving grace's is that the sound track is done by the band Queen, which leads to its own hilarity. This is one of those great movies of the 80's that is not a great movie.

Two men are seen having a sword fight in the parking lot of Madison Square Garden during a wrestling match. One of the men, Russell Nash, played by Christopher Lambert (Mortal Kombat,) wins the fight and cuts off the man's head. He immediately suffers from a mysterious electric charge. He then has a flash back where he is preparing to fight with the Scottish Clan McLeod's in 16th Century Scotland. So begins the story of Conner McLeod/Russell Nash and the great prize between him and all of the remaining immortals.

There is actually a lot more to the story but it is long and if written out can be somewhat confusing or uninteresting, which it is neither. Actually the script and story is one of the film's strong points. It is very finite. What I mean by that is that the story is very complete and doesn't leave any gapping holes or future story lines to explore. I like that about this movie and I don't understand why the producers decided to make four sequels to this movie. I am proud to say that I have not seen a single sequel and that won't change because the story for the first movie is perfect and I think it has a good ending.

Another love of this movie is the sword fights. There are plenty and all though very choreographed are fun to watch. There is something about sword fighting that is entertaining. I guess maybe because it looks like a noble way of settling things, also it is a very personal way of combat and that is something that we don't have now with the worlds ability to blow up 20 people with a car bomb even though sword fighting is very bloody and violent. But that is why Conan The Barbarian, Kill Bill movies and The Last Samurai are fun to watch.

The acting is very ok, except for the 30 minutes that Sean Connery (League of Extraordinary Gentleman,) is in the movie as McLeod's tutor/mentor Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez. He shows up to teach Conner what he is and how he must prepare to kill the worst of the immortals, The Kurgan, played by Clancy Brown (Starship Troopers.) Connery is in a class by himself in this movie in terms of acting although Brown was great as the bad guy and it looked like he had fun with the movie.

The music that is performed by Queen is great. The group really made some classics for this movie, especially the love song, Who Wants to Live Forever. If you like Queen and have not heard the music for the movie, how that is possible I don't know, then the soundtrack is a must have. The one funny thing about having Queen do the soundtrack is that when the bad guy is playing loud music to emphasize that he is the tough guy, the music that is being played is Queen. I don't know of any tough guy song's made by Queen. The orchestrated music sounded like it was done by the same guy who did the first couple of Friday the 13th movies. So obviously it is nothing special.

The movies sound effects and visual effects suffer from being made in the mid 80's before computers helped with science fiction special effects and the creatures in the final scene look like they have been stole from the Raiders of the Lost Ark ghosts after the ark was open.

Overall this movie is a classic 80's movie and should be watched by one and all. It's a great fairy tale and If you watch it I highly suggest you don't watch the others and if you have watched the others and didn't like them, give this movie a chance. Even though I haven't seen the sequels, I am sure this one is the best.

Brian - the Naked Gun