I watched Highlander (1986)

What supreme schlock.

Conceptually fun urban fantasy with a memorable performance by Clancy Brown, a great support by Sean Connery, and the performance that happened by the Jai Courtney of the 1980s; Christopher Lambert.

This movie needed more swordfights and less "oh boo hoo I'm immortal and will outlive my wives." Fuck that, if I was an immortal man on the run I would...well I wouldn't be some stone-faced dandy playing antique dealer. I'd probably be living out in the wilderness naked with my sword wishing a motherfucker would and going crazy eating raw deer or something, maybe I'd have spent my centuries or millenia breeding superintelligent wolf minions and having them swarm rivals so I could easymode the nebulous beheading game.

The film keeps setting up this whole gathering thing like it's a huge deal, and I guess that's why 4 immortals are in NYC at once? Okay, so it's four dudes in a city of millions - that's not an official mystical party, it's pure coincidence. Then it comes down to Connor and Kurgan duking it out in a warehouse, because it's an 80s movie.

This movie was some 80s yuppie fantasy, because Kurgan is clearly the aesthetically cool one. Aside his viciously excellent sense of style he's a total dickhead; or as Connor would say, he's slime.

Slime?

He did rape, so not the good guy - if he hadn't raped MacLeod's wife after killing Juan, and threatened/menaced innocent bystanders, or took them hostage, or disrupted a peaceful gathering, he'd definitely be just a guy doing what immortal swordfighters trying to eat each other's souls do. Unfortunately, MacLeod is a nice guy with all these virtues and shit and thus the hero despite how utterly fucking boring he is.

The romance with the love interest was dreadful, like she fell in love with this block of wood because...why? She keeps harassing him and he keeps telling her to fuck off, and then suddenly she's a damsel in distress, and they fall in love. What bad writing.

In the end, he wins the esoteric game and what? He's an enlightened immortal? Some electric dragon demon thing screams at him? Shit, I want to see the version where Kurgan wins and plunges the world into eternal darkness, or where Juan somehow wins and plunges the world into eternal velvet.

It kind of sucked, but the Queen soundtrack is pretty cool and the concept is fun. One wonders why this has yet to be rebooted and released to wide commercial failure.