MovieChat Forums > Highlander (1986) Discussion > Absolutely Awful In Every Aspect

Absolutely Awful In Every Aspect


So why do I like it so much.

Watched it today for the first time as a non-20 Something sitting around with a bunch of friends drinking copious amount of the cheapest alcohol available.

I actually watched it with a critical, and sober, eye and realized there is not one redeeming trait of this move. Every aspect is as bad as it gets.


So how is it still awsome?

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Your post doesn't make much sense. It's like you were drunk and sober at the same time or something.

What I like about Highlander is its charm, humour, epic story, music, score, cinematography, scene transitions, editing, and the strange amount of lucky mishaps during production (e.g. the shadow when the Kurgan is introduced, Lambert being taught English while learning his lines phonetically giving him an odd accent which fits perfectly with someone who's been alive for 450 years, etc.).
The weird combination of being very 80s, yet it is still ahead of its time style-wise.



RIP Ian Richardson (1934-2007) http://akas.imdb.com/name/nm0007183

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Might be a little too deep for you. But here goes.

The movie is AWFUL in ever objective sense with the exception of some of the cinematogrophy.

Yet is is somehow a good movie.


Like I said, I never noticed how terrible it actually is until I watched yesterday. It just struck me as odd that, no matter how terrible it was, I still liked it.

I guess it is the subjective vs the objective.

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[deleted]

Really? Even the story is awful?

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Because it is a product of the mid-80s and it was a totally off-the-wall premise that was actually executed pretty well. For those of us who grew up watching it a LOT when and after it came out, it is still groovy and part of our childhood.

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"So how is it still awsome?"

It simply just is đź‘Ť

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I watched this aged 7 or 8 on crusty VHS, under those circumstances it made a good impression, it’s full of eye-candy, great music, cool violence, Connery was a charming mentor, and the concept seemed inspired. As a result, I’ve had fond memories of this film for decades.

But recently I played the lovingly restored blu-ray and oooh mama… this shit’s bad!

Lambert is just creepy and off, so many things don’t make sense, there are loads of WTF moments (like Connery pretending to have hooves as he trains MacLeod to become one with a stag for… what reason? Or MacLeod disappearing for no reason while Connery wines and dines his wife 🤷🏻‍♂️, a series of matching signatures leads the investigator to immediately conclude that the subject must be… an immortal) Everything is overblown to the point of camp. This video says it better than I can: https://youtu.be/jJ5sfw6nYq8

Highlander is what happens when you shower a music video director - who has no appreciation of character, narrative or restraint - with money. I give it points for having the sheer balls to run with an insane creative vision, though, that does give the film an undeniable charm.

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I don't mind awfulness, I just don't like lazy writing that not only doesn't make any sense, but constructs a story that avoids any explanation so it almost looks like it doesn't even have to make any sense. It's like a child just making things up as they go, without a care in the world about making some kind of logical consistency to it all, or some kind of explanation to at least some of the events.

It's easy to write this kind of thing where nothing is explained, so nothing has to make any sense. Just make 'fantastic things happen', create a flimsy set of overly-repeated pseudo-rules without explanations as to why, and you have yourself an overrated, gimmick-filled, badly acted blob of cheese that the masses will, of course, gobble up, no questions asked.

Well, I like asking questions.. especially the ones these movies try so hard to avoid answering. The least they could do is explain things, but instead, they just tell things - and that's boring.

Think how amazing this movie could be, if everything made sense and everything was satisfactorily explained!

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