You got some of your '80s in my Fantasy flick!

Currently in Earphones: Brian Tyler's score for Timeline


Well, I finally saw the first Highlander movie last night, courtesy of Sophia, and after watching it, I can see why there has been so much follow up in the form of sequels, TV miniseries and comic books. While the plot may not exactly be high concept, it opens up a huge realm of storytelling possibilities.

I won't bother to dive into the whole Highlander universe, but I do have a piece to say concerning it's first incarnation in '86. The movie is basically a whole lot of cool with a couple of pieces of giant suck in it. However, the cool is so cool that it wins out over the crap more often than not, but every once and while I just have to cringe.

First, the awesome. The cinematography is absolutely amazing. In a time when any sort of CG simply did not exist, there are beautiful establishing shots and impressive group shots that work very well and that I can only wonder at the logistics of their construction. The camera work should be a touchstone for all action movies, as it was dynamic enough to liven up otherwise static scenes, but not so over the top as to fall into parody. Also, although the special effects (done optically or hand animated, which are quite a feat) may look a little old, they work very very effectively. To top it all off, it has sword fights, which are always awesome in my book.

So what's the bad? How could anything detract from the neat stuff mentioned above? Well, part of it may be prejudice for me, but I really don't like pop, especially during that decade. And of course, it comprises a good amount of the score. There is something about that trademark '80s synth that just oozes cheese, and says more to me about the time the film was made than transporting me in the story. Thankfully, Michael Kamen provides a decent symphonic score to fill in the gaps, but I had to stop my ears whenever The Kurgan hopped into his car and rode around, as it was always accompanied by lame '80s rock.

And as the crowning jewel of what nearly broke this movie, some really horrendous dialogue and the love story that felt like it was being shoehorned in with a sledgehammer. Well, actually, it was all the dialogue within the love story that sucked, because the rest of it was all right. The stately Scottish diction of Sean Connery lent some gravitas to the more flowery Villa-Lobos, and Christopher Lambert pulls off a reliable mix of accents that actually serves the tale. But my god, any scene between the characters of Conner and Brenda roll along like a square wheel. The scene in the bar and the "It's late in the movie and we haven't had any nudity yet" sex scene are absolutely groan inducing, clunky dialogue and virtually no chemistry completely detached me from the movie.

The poor points aside, the sword fights are decent, if a little slow by today's standards, and the dynamic camera makes up for the few more mundane "slash left, slash right, rinse, repeat" shots. Thankfully they have the right to be anachronistic with Immortal humans, so seeing a katana in Scotland isn't particularly head scratching.

So aside from the bad, Highlander is decent and fun movie, well worth it in my opinion, even if it's '80's-tastic.


Enough, More Later.
- James