MovieChat Forums > Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) Discussion > The best looking worst movie

The best looking worst movie

posted 15 years ago by Lunchbox-3
2 replies | jump to latest

I can't stop watching this film, I saw the Quickening version in the theaters, the Renegade cut on VHS and the Special Edition on DVD and I can't stop watching it. Yes it's bad, so bad that it's ... well, just painful. It's a bad sequel and even if it wasn't it's a bad movie.

But I just watched it today for about the 20th time and I can't get over how good it looks. The scope of all the sets they built, the practical effects, and medium-decent special FX. From a perspective of art direction, set & costume design, cinematography I really believe this movie stands next to giants like Blade Runner, Brazil, Alien & Aliens to name a few.

And yet the plot, the script and the acting belong alongside movies like Weekend at Bernie's II, RoboCop 3 or the Garbage Pail Kids Movie. I can't get my head around the fact that so much expense could be spent on a movie so bad. To paraphrase Winston Churchill "never have so many done so much for so sh!tty a movie." It is this perhaps this conundrum which keeps me coming back to this movie. How can these actors deliver these lines? How could the set designers come back day after day putting in these long hours knowing how terrible the script was? How could so many editors devote so much time to "fixing" the Renegade and Special Editions knowing that the movie would still be so much diarrhea? How could the fans spend the time and the money to view updated versions of such crap? How can we spend so much thought in these discussion forums trying to figure it out? And how can a franchise produce 5 movies, 2 tv series, various animated spinoffs and an upcoming remake when each installment blantantly contradicts and insults all previous entires? How can a fanbase grow under these conditions? It's like finding human life on a barren planet with no food, water or oxygen. It shouldn't be there, and yet it is! It's extremely vexing. Forget unified theory, if I can figure out this Highlander franchise I believe I will have unlocked one of the building blocks of the universe.

[–] SorrowNoMore 15 years ago

I think that in your post you really identified the strength of this movie. How can something so bad look so good? That is why I watch it often as well. It looks great, the camerawork is quite crisp; to repeat, it looks great. It's a very attractive film.

This is one of those strange paradoxes, those anomalies, that-- if solved-- will reveal new truths about the human mind, the human soul, the underlying nature of all. It will reveal new secrets of the universe itself. If the riddle of "Highlander 2: The Quickening" is solved, a new age may very well begin.

You have a lot of work ahead of you. Use your talents well and good luck.

[–] Artificial-Soldier 15 years ago

Best looking bad movie goes to Alien 3