HIGHLANDER 2: THE SHOW MUST GO review
Hope this is the right part of the forum to post this, if not I apologize!
I loved the original HIGHLANDER, its still one of my favourite movies and landing in Hong Kong in 1990 and realizing that HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING opened that day, i made a point of hitting the cinema that night, and some 90 or so minutes later came to the conclusion that Jetlag was affecting me a lot more than i had realized, and blamed my confusion and why the movie seemed so disjointed on the affects of a 12 hr flight. A couple of days later i decided i'd adjusted suitably to revisit and was shocked at how rough and lacking the release version was, and over the years learnt about the various issues that had affected the film during production and post production.
The arrival of the Renegade Version on Laserdisc back in the day made a hell of a lot of an improvement, as did the subsequent ZIEST edition and the commentary, restored scenes and documentary features and interviews made me think we'd got the best version, and then last week i stumbled across the fanedit site and heard about Robulon's edit and needed to see it. I reached out to Robulon, and after a few minor issues with some overly moody software i was able to watch and I loved it!
From the opening scene with Brenda's death flowing into Freddie Mercury's haunting vocals on THE SHOW MUST GO ON, and the new credits and text, the shot of the now aged Mcleod driving to the Opera while we get the first glimpses of life under the shield, the Opera scene and flashback being cut in a way that makes sense and feels right, the Cobalt infliltration with Karate legend Mike Stone (Enter the Ninja) as part of Virginia Madsen's team,
Mcleod trying to come to terms with things including the realization that his past is catching up with him, and the battle with the flying assassins has never looked better and great use of HEADLONG to score the fight and chase,
some nice tightening up and repositioning of a few moments and trims, i have a very soft spot for the entire Ramirez ressurection scene "Alas Dear Shithead" and the tailer shop scene
I always loved the subway scene more for the idea than the execution and its absence here isn't missed, and makes the confrontation between Mcleod and Katana at the graveyard more effective, and makes the first fight between them work ever better
i'll do a full review at some point, apologies tonight I'm tired out, but great work by Robulon, i think it wasn't just the major adjustments, but some of the subtle ones, reworking certain dialogue and while i like Stewart Copeland and his album The Equalizer and other Cliff Hangers is a great release, never felt his music lived up to the Queen Michael Kamen soundtrack for the first film, so the use of selected Queen song's including Those Were The Days of Our Lives for the Finale made it all work so well for me.
Loved it, now if only there was any way to make Highlander: The Source work any better, but i think that might be impossible!