Highlander 2 - 2004 Renegade version

I actually agree, though I don't think it's a good movie.

Highlander 2: Renegade is the only film in the entire franchise to explore a post-prize world, which makes it pretty fascinating. It interprets the Prize through the lens of the Holy Grail myth - just because you have found the Grail doesn't mean that the journey is over. In fact, it's just begun, and it's how you use the Grail that will determine your true merit as its new owner. Highlander 2 is fundamentally about how Connor MacLeod won the Prize, screwed it up with the creation of the Shield, and because of immortals traveling from the past to challenge him again, he regains his immortality and gets a second chance to re-win the Prize and this time use it for good. In the end, he earns his redemption.

I like the idea of immortals traveling from the past because it enables Connor to remain "the One" without cheating like the third film did (there were some walled in a cave, and Connor never really won...woops) and the TV show (which ignores that the Prize was ever won and inexplicably shows other immortals still running around). And I like the idea of ancient priests banishing immortals into the future to keep the Prize from being won in their own lifetime -- and the way that they subtly subvert Katana's authority by doing so. And they trick him into entering the Game in a future world because they know that the only way he can return is by winning the Prize himself and choosing to return to the past; I suspect that they're banking on Katana's arrogance to get in the way, enabling Connor to take his head and peace to be restored in the past without Katana's dictatorship. So in the scenes in the past, you basically are shown these priests cleverly dissolving Katana's power by banishing other immortals from this ancient past into the future.

The problem is, I'm describing in the above paragraphs a far better movie than the only we ended up with. The problem with Highlander 2 is not the concept, which is complex and right on target with the mythos, but rather the execution: Terrible acting and really murky storytelling that makes the above ideas confusing and seemingly contradictory to the first film. The movie never makes clear how Connor and Ramirez could have come from this ancient past but were somehow running around in 16th century Scotland, and the film decides to focus on Michael Ironside's atrocious overacting as the villain (aping Nicholson's Joker, in my opinion) instead of its interesting plot. Which is too bad....Highlander 2 is an example of a really cool concept completely getting destroyed by its delivery. Yet at its heart is in my opinion the only true sequel to Highlander, a film that takes the themes and ideas of the first film and attempts to give it new dimensions by raising the stakes and examining the nature of the Quickening and the Prize. Too but the result was so spectacularly bad.