Highlander II: The Quickening

Plot synopsis:
In August 1994, news broadcasts announce that the ozone layer is fading, and will be completely gone in a matter of months. In Africa, millions have perished from the effects of unfiltered sunlight. Among the dead is Connor MacLeod's wife, Brenda Wyatt MacLeod. Before dying, Brenda extracts a promise from Connor that he will solve the problem of the ozone layer.
By 1999, Connor MacLeod becomes the supervisor of a scientific team headed by Dr. Allan Neyman, which attempts to create an electromagnetic shield to cover the planet, and protect it from the Sun’s radiation. The team succeeds, in effect giving Earth an artificial ozone layer. MacLeod and Neyman are proud to have saved humanity, and believe they will be remembered for a thousand years.
The shield has the side effect of condemning the planet to a state of constant night, a high average global temperature, and high humidity. By 2024, the years of darkness have caused humanity to lose hope and fall into a decline. The shield has fallen under the control of the Shield Corporation. The corporation’s current chief executive, David Blake, is focused on profit, and is imposing fees for the corporation’s services. A number of terrorist groups have begun trying to take down the Shield, among them Louise Marcus, a former employee of the Shield Corporation.
Meanwhile, MacLeod, now a frail old man, expects to eventually die of natural causes. As he watches a performance of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, an image of Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez appears, and induces MacLeod to recall a forgotten event of his past. On the planet Zeist, a last meeting is held between the members of a rebellion against the rule of General Katana. The rebellion’s leader, Ramirez, chooses "a man of great destiny" from among them—MacLeod—to carry out a mission against Katana. At this moment, Katana and his troops attack, crushing the rebellion. Katana orders his men to capture Ramirez and MacLeod alive and kill the rest of the rebels. The two captives are put on trial by Zeist's priests, who sentence them to be exiled and reborn on Earth in pursuit of "The Prize." Winning the Prize gives the victor the choice to either grow old and die on Earth, or to return to Zeist. Katana is unsatisfied with their decision, but the sentence is executed, leading to the events of the original 1986 film.
Back in 2024, Louise Marcus discovers that the ozone layer has in fact restored itself naturally, which means that the shield is no longer needed. The Shield Corporation is aware of this development, but has chosen to hide it from the general public in order to maintain its main source of profit. Meanwhile, on Zeist, Katana decides that MacLeod cannot be allowed to return, and sends his immortal henchmen, Corda and Reno, to kill him.
Marcus manages to reach MacLeod first, and asks for his help in taking down the Shield. To her disappointment, she finds the passionate person she once admired has grown into a tired old man. MacLeod explains to her that he is dying and expresses his disapproval of terrorism. Before they can finish their conversation, Corda and Reno attack. MacLeod manages to decapitate them both, absorbs their energy during the Quickening, and regains his youthful appearance. In the process, MacLeod summons Ramirez back to life.
In Glencoe, Scotland - the location of his death in the first Highlander film - Ramirez is revived. He finds himself on a theatrical stage during a performance of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Meanwhile, MacLeod has found a new lover in Marcus. He attempts unsuccessfully to explain to her the concepts of his immortality. Elsewhere, General Katana arrives in New York, the scene of The Gathering and begins wreaking havoc.
Both Ramirez and Katana soon adapt to their new environment. Ramirez’s earring is apparently valuable enough to pay both for a new suit he acquires from the finest and oldest tailor’s shop in Scotland, and for an airplane ticket to New York City. Katana finds New York much to his liking. After entertaining himself for a while, Katana encounters MacLeod at a church. Since immortals are forbidden from fighting on holy ground, they do not fight each other, but MacLeod expresses rage at being immortal once again.
Soon thereafter, MacLeod is contacted by Ramirez, who joins them in their plan to take down the Shield. Katana, expecting this, forges an uneasy alliance with David Blake, who mentions that shutting down the planetary shield would require so much energy that the planet would be destroyed. The conflict between the two sets of allies eventually leads to the deaths of Dr. Allan Neyman, Ramirez, Blake and General Katana himself. MacLeod succeeds in taking down the Shield by using the combined energies of his final Quickening from General Katana. Marcus sees the stars for the first time in her life. MacLeod then claims The Prize by returning to Zeist with Marcus.

Tags: comedy, murder, cult, violence, flashback, good versus evil, action, revenge, sci-fi

Review:
I'd say the film is pretty much divided between being on Earth in 2024 and Zeist 500 years before, but I think it was meant to be on Earth in 2024.Now that that's cleared up ...Imagine, if you will, that most of what they told us in the original HIGHLANDER was crap.
Lies!And if you believe that, I've got some $200,000 property for you down in sunny North Carolina.Connor MacLeod, the main character of the original film (played by Christopher Lambert), is old and dying.
Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez is resurrected from the dead and comes back (for nine minutes of screen time) to help MacLeod shut down the shield.If you haven't figured it out by now, HIGHLANDER II is completely messed-up.I haven't seen a sequel this bad in who knows how long.
I think Ebert said it best in his review of the film: he describes HIGHLANDER II as being "a movie almost awesome in its badness".
The first Highlander was a great film, it had a good story, good characters and plot that pretty much worked.
Highlander II had some of the worst acting I have ever seen, really bad camera work, horrifying choreography in the fights scenes, a story that made absolutely no sense, cruddy special effects and overall, it was just a really bad movie.
This was by far the worst of the Highlander series, and the sequels later on disregarded this movie which I felt was a good idea..
Needing to grasp on to a strand of optimism, perhaps only the thickness of a human hair, I long ago decided that the film existed purely as a textbook demonstration for future filmmakers on how not to make a successful sequel to a hit movie.
To get around this the makers of The Quickening simply decided to ditch the back-story of the original film and invent a new one which would enable them to write around the fact that all the immortals, bar M.Lambert were, not unlike themselves, dead from the neck up.
To fully appreciate how awful an idea this is you need only imagine a Star Wars sequel in which the action is suddenly set in present day Earth for reasons of plot convenience or a second instalment of Titanic in which it's revealed that Jack and Rose are actually time-travellers and are thus able to prevent the disaster and save all their friends.
The Locations, The Soundtrack, The Kurgan, The Plot...Now, take it all away and replace it with...Awful red sky effect throughout the film, Couple of old Queen songs from the 1st film, Michael Ironside doing a bad Kurgan impression and a "plot" that doesn't have any relevance to the original plot...That is Highlander II..
But something happens and immortals are suddenly starting to show up again and Connor must fight once again.I don't want to know which drugs the script-writers were using when coming up with the plot for this movie.
Highlander Connor MacLeod must reveal the truth about the Earth's anti-ozone shield while fighting some immortals sent from the past.It lacks the danger and finesse of the original, but thankfully the new Highlander 2 edit with updated effects makes this troubled and poorly executed sequel at least watchable, compared to the original theatrical release.Michael Ironside and supporting cast give distracting, larger than life theatrical performances.
The new cut now makes sense; for example why MacLeod becomes immortal again, hinting that he has forgotten a past, prior the setting of the first film, and gone is the idea that Ramírez and Connor come from another planet.If you must watch Highlander 2, avoid the 'The Quickening' version at all cost and watch the 2010 blu-ray release.
The drastic changes from the original film were panned at the time but in a culture swamped in bad remakes and redundant sequels, maybe posterity will appreciate how Highlander 2 ramps up the political and existential themes that were wallpaper to its more exciting predecessor..
Featuring new state-of-the-art special effects and digital re-mastering, it's HIGHLANDER II like you've never seen or heard before.Thing's I love in this movie: Christopher Lambert is reunited with Sean Connery and director Russell Mulcahy.
Highlander 2: Renegade Version really reworked the movie in to kind a the original version supposed to be: they are not really an aliens, they are kind a, just put trough time and they are finding that out.
They have to fight each other in a combat to the death, when you behead someone you take their energy away and when you kill all the immortals you become mortal and that is basically what happens with a Highlander 2: Renegade Version.The reason I love this movie is because it takes place in the future and it is cool, there is a guy with a wings going after him, those guys are kind a nit.
Wyatt returns in this movie but this time she is played by Karin Drexler when we find out what happened to the character from the first movie.Katana (Michael Ironside) does respect the rules, the immortals never fight on a holly ground.The sky is red in this film because of the field energy.
The only problem with film I have is: The renegade version may be a better edited movie than the original crap fest The Quickening, but it still suffers from terrible screenplay which had problems from the very beginning.The fight between MacLeod and Katana was cut short and it could be a longer duel.
Highlander II: The Quickening is a 1991 American science fiction action film directed by Russell Mulcahy and starring Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen, and Michael Ironside.
It is the second installment to the Highlander film series, and it was released on 12 April 1991 in the United Kingdom and 1 November 1991 in the United States.8/10 Score: B Kismet Entertainment Film Distributors Starring: Christopher Lambert, Virginia Madsen, Michael Ironside, Sean Connery, John C.
Now, I still liked all of that, and in addition, I enjoyed several examples of great camera and directing, as well as the very good soundtrack, but this time all of that was not enough to cover for one of the worst screenplays in the history of cinema."Highlander II: The Quickening" retains the actors and characters from the first film, while completely ignoring the original story.
It may have some laughable details in the depiction of the swords, such as swords being able to hack through steel girders, but I can forgive these silly little details in the original movie, because it is such great fun to watch.The same can not be said of Highlander 2.This movie is bad.It is so bad one can hardly believe it is anything more than some kind of sick parody, as opposed to a true sequel, and, if one is stupid enough to watch it, will leave that person in a shocked stupor wondering just how the makers of this film could have corrupted the themes and characters of the original film to the outrageous extent that they did.
I kid you not.Even Christopher Lambert threatened to quit during the making of the movie, because it was so bad.Highlander (the original) is an excellent movie.
Upon closer inspection one will notice that the majority of bad reviews, like my own, are based on the original theatrical release (The Quickening), which is truly awful, while the majority of good reviews are based on another version of the movie (The Renegade Edition), which, I am told, is actually quite good.
I have not seen the Renegade Edition, so my review is based on the earlier version.The Renegade Edition of Highlander 2 is quite different from The Quickening, because the original director went back, and completely re-edited the film, restoring it as closely as possible to the way he had originally intended for it to be, as opposed to The Quickening, which had been heavily meddled with by various people within the studio that produced the film.
Somehow I struggled through the entire length (it seemed an eternity) of the film, constantly bolstering myself up with optimistic phrases like, "It's been so bad so far, that it couldn't possibly get any worse." and "Well, the whole thing can't be bad, there's got to be something good before the ending." I was wrong.
Someday, someone will say, "The worst film I've seen in twenty years, almost 80% as bad as Highlander II, The Quickening"..
Nobody knew anything about how an Immortal could be "killed" or about the mysterious prize that awaited the victor of the "Gathering".And so with its sequel the producers and the script writers  tried to emulate the success generated by these ambiguities by introducing HIGHLANDER fans to new plot revelations they would never have imagined such as Immortals actually being aliens.
But it was because of the success of the 1ST film along with the countless letters the producers received from fans who "WANTED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF THE IMMORTALS" that this sequel was given the go ahead.So the HIGHLANDER fans cannot blame the producers for scripting this film they way they had done.I thoroughly enjoyed the 1ST film back in 1986 and I was suprised when I heard there was a sequel was planned.
In fact it is the stupid THIRD FILM along with the pathetic TV SERIES and the  even sillier ANIMATED SERIES that has eroded the  novelty and entertainment value of the original HIGHLANDER movie.And now after recently watching the 1ST HIGHLANDER movie again after a long interval I feel that it has aged badly and reeks of campiness (even my dad who watched it for the first time thought it was silly that these people were still using swords in the present age instead of using modern guns and explosives!!)And this is where HIGHLANDER II triumphs.
And there is a genuine sense of warmth and comraderie between Connery and Lambert's characters in this film that never appeared in the original HIGHLANDER movie.It is a pity that the producers never continued with the ZEIST storyline in the other sequels even though HIGHLANDER II was the most successful film of the series.I would recommend the new RENEGADE version over the old QUICKENNING version as it has more footage and action and less of the harsh editing that permeated the older version.All in all HIGHLANDER II is the best of the series regardless of what some fans say (it is because of these fans that the Saga has been dragged out in the form of the stupid 3RD/ 4TH films and the sad TV and animated series.)At least HIGHLANDER II like the 1ST is an ORIGINAL film!!!.
It's not Christopher Lambert or Russell Mulcahy's fault the original sucked so stop blaming them.The Special Edition was much better than the theatrical version with longer fight scenes, better sounds, and the storyline where immortals are aliens is removed completely.
Somehow like in Blade Runner, and that kind of movies: dark streets, rain, depressed people, technology, giant firm, activists (in a good sense), who try to fight against them, etc.Weak parts are many, for me the superficiality of the story is the biggest.
The story is simple, but even in this situation, due to the "short scenes", you ask yourself: "WHAT was that, and WHY happened that?" The execution of the visual part of this dark future world is very nice, but the lack of a coherent and progressing story is a bit painful.The performance of the actors are sufficient, good performances, just maybe Michael Ironside overacted a bit his role in some scenes.So, everything at all: I know, that this film has a lot of disadvantages compared with Highlander I, and does not meet many fans expectations, but I think, that it isn't as bad, as lot of people says.If you like cyberpunk, and you doesn't wait too much things from the Highlander I - just watch this movie in itself, don't relate too much to the first part - then I think it's a fair good movie, even more than a Watch-it-Once..
Its astonishing that they checked out those dailies and still made the film.Ebert - "If there is a planet somewhere whose civilization is based on the worst movies of all time, "Highlander 2: The Quickening" deserves a sacred place among their most treasured artifacts.".
Probably the biggest contradiction to the first film in this movie is that Connor and Ramirez are from another planet called Zeist in Highlander 2.
There is so many things I could have said about this movie but to sum this up Highlander 2: The Quickening is a laughable sequel that's very entertaining if you don't take it too seriously.
It's arguably better, but...I like how some people think that the Planet Zeist makes the whole thing impossible to be in the Highlander world, but guys in jet packs with ray guns arriving via time travel from "The Distant Past" somehow, someway, fits in with the Highlander continuity.
This version makes a lot more sense and follows the plot of the first Highlander film a lot more closely.
If you have not seen this movie please do.It is a good action story with Sean Connery great as always..
Even if it doesn't really fit in here, in the Highlander series.The fights are about the same as the first movie, but the villain doesn't seem to do enough bad things.
The director's cut of this entertaining sequel to the original Highlander(1986) is the best way to see the film.
3. 19 minutes of the film was cut, leaving gaping plot holes.Recently the director (Mulcahy) and producer (Panzer) using their own money completed the film and edited it back together following the original story boards and script.
The best improvement is that the movie now does not look out of place within the trilogy.The original version (Quickening) should only be viewed to bare witness to how studio executives have now idea what film making is about.
- HOWEVER - If you are able to watch the Highlander 2: Renegade version of this movie, you will be watching a completely different movie.Finally with this director's cut, Russell Mulcahy is able to get his hands back onto the film which was rightfully his but wrongfully snatched at the time of it's initial release.
There are no references to that confusing "Planet Zeist", there is no reference to 'The Quickening' and everything is credible in regards to this being a sequel to the original.Sean Connery's return makes sense, as does The Highlander's origins.
Even the sequels that followed weren't as good as the first one, nor the tv series both animated and live action didn't live up to the classic highlander movie from 1986 that is easily watchable in american and european versions with the Queen soundtrack.
The Kurgan may have been vanquished - remember decapitation is the only way to be killed if you are a highlander, but now they are more foes to conquer in an even more hostile world.This film starred: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery & Michael Ironside.Highlander 2 is that bad, it makes Highlander look like a sold 10/10 film that should go down in history as one of the best films ever.
The rest of the sketchy plot basically has a new breed of Immortal trying to gain supremacy and draw MacLeod, along with his friend and mentor Ramirez (Sean Connery) into a final battle to the death.A film that enjoyed the level of success that Highlander did was destined for a sequel at some point, even if it was five years later, but this is a sequel that appears unsure as to what it's predesessor was even about, instead giving the plot a post-apocalyptic Blade Runner type angle that doesn't fit in with the time travel theme the original was stabbing at.
How Sean Connery could be in this movie is beyond me..and his apperance is just stupid.Michael Ironside is "good" in his role..especially in the scene with the train.
The Renegade Version (Director's Cut) is a watchable but bad film.
I cannot conceive why Connery or Lambert agreed to make this movie.If Highlander II had been written as a discrete work without its sequel-status it would have most-likely have gone straight to video.
It would actually have been better received had there never BEEN an original film and it just been released as say THE QUICKENING?I don't know how many of you are aware of the existence of the cobbled-together amended re-shoot known as HIGHLANDER 2: (The Renegade version)THE DIRECTOR'S CUT.
I didn't put it in any context with the original Highlander movie, but took it as it own film and as a comedy.
Perhaps Burton's 'Planet of the Apes' is the first movie that brings back that old feeling, with the space station introduction.Another thing that is great about 'Highlander II' is Sean Connery's performance, which brings fun to the story for a second time.
This is the worst sequel in movie history (I also said that for Jaws The Revenge and The Crow:City Of Angels I can't decide which one I hate the most)Not even Sean Connery can save this turkey!!!Sure it had problems with the insurance company etc but how could anyone think that a movie that totally rewrites the history of the characters would make money this is bad plain and simple I can't think of one nice thing to say about it oh wait yes I can Michael Ironside is in it and as always he plays a great tough guy role.Thats it the only redeeming feature of this stinker.Avoid it at all costs,The Renegade version is only a little better but makes the story incoherent.
In 1986, Russell Mulcahy made a great film called Highlander, about a group of human immortals, fighting, over a period of 500 years, to become The One. Five years later, the sequel bell rang, and this movie is what Mulcahy came up with.