To me, there is no other movie worse than Speed 2. I’m
hoping most people that know me, or at least have started to read these since
the first day of Speed 2 Month, are aware of that. That isn’t to say that this
terrible movie hasn’t been challenged for the top (bottom?) spot, or that it
won’t lose in the future, because, let’s face it, Hollywood hasn’t done much
but challenge the shitpile for some time now. Sometime during Speed 2 Month I’ll
go over the movie that very nearly stole the title away – INDIANA JONES AND THE
KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Today though, I’m going to take a look at HIGHLANDER
2, sometimes known as THE QUICKENING, a veritable attack on the senses of fans
and viewers alike.
HIGHLANDER, that kooky, cross-casting fantasy movie from
former music video director Russell Mulcahy came out in 1986 and took the movie
viewing audience by storm. No, really. It did. I mean, you remember when it
came out, right? All right, so it tanked at the box office. Still, it blew up
the home video market and due to its broad tale, curious, inventive casting and
great music, spawned legions of fans. It also spawned a series of spinoff
movies, television shows and other media, many of which fall into the “terrible
idea” category. The first being HIGHLANDER 2, a woefully inept attempt at
making money off the coattails of the earlier movie, which makes me feel as if
I’m being mean to the words “woefully” and “inept”.
HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING is so bad it’s practically
unwatchable. It makes you wonder what Mulcahy was thinking when he was
directing the mess of a script. Not only does the story completely undermine
the brilliance of the first movie, you feel as if it just got killed and raped
on screen before you – in that order. The truth of it is most people would
rather pluck their own eyes out with a spork than watch this explosive
degeneration of film artistry. Still, it has merits.
I can tell you’re all bwah-ha-ha’s and guffaws. How can a
movie, considered by many critics and reviewers all across the world to be the
Worst Ever Made, have merit? Simple. Doubling a movie’s budget does not mean it’ll
be successful. Slapping your stars in ironclad contracts will do one of two
things: some will act as they always do, performing their best because they’re
professionals or they may just “phone it in” and showcase their complete
disdain for whatever is being filmed at the time. You’ll find both in this movie;
I’ll let you decide who is who (Virginia Madsen doesn’t count, she’s just awful
in everything). See the merit yet? Okay, to go one further, and this is the
obvious bit of it: this is the bottom of the fucking shit barrel. Something,
somewhere has got to be better, right? Go out and watch that instead! Quit
thinking every sequel is going to get you what GODFATHER 2 or THE EMPIRE
STRIKES BACK delivered.
By now you’re thinking that I’ve already found my
replacement for SPEED 2 as the worst of the worst. I refute that, for a few
reasons. One of which is the way SPEED 2 was marketed to the viewer. It was
held up as the SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER!
(Cue fireworks) Watch! See! Pay scads of
money for a great time! And all that. Its budget was also in excess of 100
million, which Highlander 2 didn’t even get close to, including after releasing
at least two other versions, just to try and smoothe over the ruffled feathers
of fans, the director and humanity at large. Small studios don’t get the
dressing down that the larger ones do, and that’s due to their horrid marketing
goons. Every single one of them should get MY yearly salary and do the job they’re
supposed to do, just to see how different they work. Schmucks. A second reason
HIGHLANDER 2 stands higher than SPEED 2? Sean Connery. He trumps Jason Patric
any day. Even in a ZARDOZ costume.
Crap does have merit if you know where to look. Imperiously,
SPEED 2 will never have merit. Not even in Canada.
For the upcoming holiday, I’ll show off some superheroic
chops with a Captain America zinger that struck J.D. Salinger to hide from a
whole different side of the media.
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