We have our hero: Connor Mcleod (pictured here with Queen)
As all good movies that have no plot but awesome back story, the bulk of this movie is told in flashback. Connor is an immortal whose goal is to protect humanity from evil - which can't be shot and killed, but must be beheaded with a broadsword. In the present day, he rocks a urban casual look: antique collector by day and bad ass in a tan trenchcoat by night. The present-day plot is sort of slim: he has to kill a bad guy or he will be killed, and he boinks a redhead. He gets the girl, the punk gets beheaded and thats about it.
Where this movie is totally awesome is in the flashbacks. We see Connor in his original get up:
Which is less historically accurate than Braveheart and no where near as exciting as his white trainers. It's easy to loose Labmert on screen due to his slightly less than mediocre acting, although his abnormally large forehead keeps the viewers eye firmly affixed to his on-screen character. (Look at his forehead: it looks like to breasts attached to his skull! The should have worked with it and had him sprout horns) McLoed gets stabbed by an evil man wearing a bear skull for a helmet and dies. And then doesn't. He comes back to life, his village freaks out and we get an hysterical attempt at a witch burning.
The film really picks up with the entrance of Pimp of the Year, Sean Connery.
If they had ever put me in a red velvet costume with peacock feathered cloak, red velvet cavalier's hat with more peacock feathers, and a pearl earring the size of a quail egg... they would have had to pry my cold dead corpse out of it. Why he didn't steal this costume and wear it to every red carpet opening since 1986 is totally beyond me.
So Connery shows up playing a Spaniard of sorts. He plays Obi Wan to Connor's Skywalker: revealing the shared immortality of himself and our hero. We get a Rocky style training-montage that shows Connors development, including lots of running to catch up with a horseback riding Connery, sword fighting on mountain tops, sweating, giggling, and disarming each other.
Flip back to the present day and we get our next awesome character: the Kurgen
He starts out (in flashbacks, of course) in this get up:
Yes, that is a bear skull and yes, his body armour has external ribs, nipples, and fur. How can yous trike fear into your enemies unless you pull out the nipples of death?
Fast forward into the present-time, and we get this gem:
Kurgen reflects Hollywood's idea of 80s punks in all their glory. He looks like a Hot Topic sales person who just left the local BDSM convention. Best of all, he is full accessorized with that 80s punk staple: safety pins. Not just to hold his clothing together, but to keep his head attacked to his neck.
With the costuming you get in this movie, you really don't need much of an excuse for a plot, so the little you get is actually a lot of fun. It also has the typical 80s gratuitous sex scene (with shadowed boobies!) which has nothing to do with the plot (the chick he hooks up with was a former gfriend from the 18th century who tried to burn him at the stake after he came back to life) but a whole lot to do with breasts.
All in all, this movie is good fun and a great way to escape into the silliness of Hollywood flix.
Also, it's cool that the Kurgen looks like Skeletor from He-man. And the chick the Highlander nails has big 80s-hair, both in ancient Scotland and in the present.
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