Heard the one about the 450-year-old French Scotsman (Christopher Lambert) who’s tutored by a Scots Spaniard (Sean Connery) as he bids to become a master swordsman so he can behead a growling American Russian (Clancy Brown) to win omniscience? Sure you have. Highlander may have flopped in the theatres but it built up a rabid fanbase on VHS, ensuring its own immortality. Watched now, the riotous mix of Russell Mulcahy’s MTV visuals (“What can I say? I was in my music video days”), quotable zingers (“Happy Hallowe’en, ladies”) and old-as-the-Scottish-hills myth (the hero’s journey) invokes both heart-booming glee, mild nausea and, for viewers of a certain age, warm nostalgia.
DVD Extras:
Drab extras, mind. Mulcahy’s commentary is low on insight or incident, the ‘interview’ with Lambert is a cough and a spit and the three-part Making Of, an hour in total, sees the production designer and DoP drone on unedited. Oh well... another time, MacLeod.
