Highlander II: The Quickening
Short description
Connor MacLeod has won the Prize and become mortal, growing old on a future Earth where the ozone layer has been destroyed and sunlight is deadly. He helped build a vast shield that protects the planet, but the corporation controlling it has turned the technology to its own ends, and he has been pushed aside as he approaches the end of his life. His memories return to the planet Zeist, where he was born, and to General Katana, the tyrant he once opposed, who now wants him dead.
Russell Mulcahy directs this sequel to his 1986 film Highlander, the second of what became a series and the third of the fourteen features he has directed to date, followed the same year by Ricochet. Peter Bellwood wrote the screenplay, and Peter S. Davis and William N. Panzer produced. Christophe Lambert returns as Connor, with Sean Connery as his old mentor Ramirez, Virginia Madsen as Louise Marcus, Michael Ironside as Katana, John C. McGinley as David Blake and Phillip Brock as the Cabbie.
Made for about 34 million dollars, the film took roughly 16 million worldwide, a result well below its cost. On IMDb it holds a rating of 4.7 out of 10 from just under a thousand votes. A critics' score of 3 out of 10 from 25 reviews places it clearly below even that modest audience figure.
What's left behind the scenes
- During the filming of the movie, Robert Zemeckis' comedy 'Back to the Future Part II' (1990) was released in theaters. In one scene, a character travels through the air on a flying skateboard; the producers of Highlander liked the idea so much that they immediately devised similar flying boards for the Zeist mercenaries.
- Filming of the movie was completed on the same day that filming of the first film was completed five years earlier.
- Christopher Lambert and Michael Ironside performed most of their own stunts. The first received a broken finger as a reward, the second – a dislocated jaw from an accidental blow.
- Russell Malkahi, forced to compromise with the producers, so disliked the final version of the film that he only attended the premiere to 'tick a box'; he left the theater 15 minutes after the screening began.
- Christopher Lambert was only kept on the project due to contractual obligations. He disliked the rewritten script so much that he would have been happy to turn down the role. Nevertheless, he managed to insist on the mandatory inclusion of Sean Connery in the film.
- Malkahi demanded that his name in the credits be replaced with the standard pseudonym Alan Smith. However, under contract, he had no right to obstruct the project; the producers threatened him with a lawsuit.
- The documentary about the making of the film, attached to the director's cut, recounts that during filming in Argentina, severe inflation began, so the insurance company, which intended to maximize its profit from the project, itself began to exert creative control over the production.
- Sean Connery earned $3.5 million for 9 days of filming – almost as much as he earned for the lead role in 'The Hunt for Red October' (1990).
- In episodes not included in the film, it is explained that Kurgan is a native of the ominous planet Zeist and that General Katana (Michael Ironside) hired him to kill MacLeod. In one such episode, Katana watches on a large screen the final duel between MacLeod and Kurgan, and upon the latter's failure, sends two hitmen after MacLeod's head.
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