Highlander: Immortal
I didn’t see Highlander during its cinematic release way back in 1986. In fact, I don’t recall its cinematic release, which is unusual, because I was constantly going to the cinema to watch movies. It wasn’t until Highlander’s VHS release that I saw it (I only borrowed it because I borrowed pretty much everything), but it immediately became a favourite. Swords? Tragic heroes? Two beautiful love interests in Beatie Edney’s Heather (and even the romantic in teen-me was committed to the tragedy of that romance) and Roxanne Hart’s Brenda? A larger-than-life villain in Kurgan (awesomely played by the equally awesome Clancy Brown)? Sean Connery as the mentor Ramirez? Actually, it…
Wonky World Building and JJ
All storytellers have different strengths and weaknesses. In telling a story, they’ll play to their strengths, and hopefully that compensates for their weaknesses. But what happens when a storyteller’s weakness is storytelling? I can’t fault director JJ Abrams’s ability to make visually stunning movies (lens flares and all). But his storytelling is terrible, which is born from his appalling world-building. Word-building is paramount to me. Get it right, and you can sell me anything. I’ll believe immortals are living among us who can only die if they lose their head; I’ll believe an eccentric inventor builds a time machine out of a DeLorean; I’ll believe an archaelogist is retained by…