Remember the movie 'Highlander'? It came out in the mid-eighties. It was exciting and original. A story of immortal warriors, born into a world that didn't understand them, perfecting the art of sword-fighting over centuries and using it to battle their way towards a destiny which would see them granted untold power. It was a brilliant film, witty, stylish and well made. Smooth and slick with excellent fight choreography and a killer script.
However, Vidyavajra and I watched it last night. Now either I've been remembering the film as being better than it actually is, or they've made a special 'tepid-crap' version for DVD.
For a start, there are a few flash backs to Christopher Lambert's character's past, living in the Scottish highlands. (hence 'highlander', clever huh?). Now being born in Scotland you would expect him to have a Scottish accent right? Apparently Mr Lambert thinks that Scotland is situated somewhere between France and Nigeria. I've not heard a worse accent since Dick 'cor-blimey guvnor' Van-Dyke in Mary Poppins. And while he was spending all of his time working on his travesty of an accent he forgot that he would need to act at the same time. Sean Connery turns up saying that he's an ancient immortal, from Egypt by way of Spain. If only he'd told Christopher to give Egyptian-Spanish a go instead of French-Nigerian, he'd have had the perfect Scottish accent.
I'd talk about the acting in this film, but frankly there wasn't any. Every single character in this film gave the impression of reading their lines from an auto-que. An auto-que written by a seven year old with ADHD who's read far too many Action-Man comics. The choreography was tired and slow, and the plot pointless. Nearly as pointless as the soundtrack, which whilst full of some seriously cool songs by Queen, was a bit inappropriate. Every little action such as Lambert pouring himself a glass of wine would be accompanied by a power chord or a piece of nifty vocal harmonising. Still it could have been worse, they could have made two sequels involving immortal aliens and a shape shifting wizard played by Mario Van Peebles. That would have been really bad. (And while I'm on the subject what did happen to Mr Van P anyway?)