Sean Connery’s Worst Movie Is Such a Mess It Deserves Its 0% Rotten Tomatoes Score
When Sean Connery died in 2020, fans all over the world remembered him for his extensive body of critically-acclaimed work. However, even the Academy Award-winning actor had a flop now and then. One of his worst fails is in a uniquely lousy category: movies that got a 0% rating on the movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Despite Connery’s many successful films, this one deserved every bad review.
Sean Connery stumbled into acting
According to Biography, Sean Connery’s introduction to acting was almost an accident. After a short stint in the Royal Navy, Connery was working at home in Edinburgh as a laborer when his friends nominated him to enter the 1953 Mr. Universe contest in London.
He took third place in the contest, and he also caught the eye of a local casting director. He invited Connery to join the chorus of a stage production of South Pacific. Although he didn’t have any of the skills needed to be in theater, he tried his hand at it and fell in love with acting.
He spent the next few years doggedly pursuing his new passion, appearing in several movies and TV shows. By 1959, he broke into Hollywood movies, and in 1962, he landed the role of James Bond. He played the suave spy in Dr. No, the first franchise of the series, and went on to star in a total of seven Bond movies.
He was a star now, and he continued to work for decades, appearing in dozens of critically acclaimed and blockbuster movies, including Murder on the Orient Express, The Name of the Rose, The Untouchables, and The Hunt for Red October.
However, amidst his many successes, there was The Highlander II: The Quickening.
‘The Highlander II: The Quickening’ starring Sean Connery
In 1991, Sean Connery made a sequel to his 1986 movie Highlander. Although the sequel had the same characters and actors as the first film, it seemed as though it was otherwise unconnected. The chaotic plot included a once life-saving radiation shield destroying the planet, terrorists, and exiled extra-terrestrial aliens, including Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez, played by Connery.
According to IMDb, the movie had a $30 million budget, yet it only grossed $15,556,340 globally. It also achieved the dubious distinction of earning a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics didn’t pull any punches.
“Highlander 2: The Quickening is the dullest and shoddiest action-adventure flick of the year, with only a few cute Sean Connery moments to rescue it from total, sheer and utter bogosity.”
“Highlander 2: The Quickening is the most hilariously incomprehensible movie I’ve seen in many a long day — a movie almost awesome in its badness.”
“Mulcahy and company don’t ask us to suspend disbelief; they ask us to pretend we’ve all had weed-whacker lobotomies.”
“The acting is terrible, with Connery, at his lowest common denominator, stealing the show.”
Even here at CheatSheet, we’ve listed it as one of the 10 worst sci-fi sequels ever made.
Other movies with 0% Rotten Tomatoes scores
Highlander II: The Quickening isn’t alone in its 0% rating. According to Newsweek, at least 40 movies on Rotten Tomatoes have managed the same honor, several of which had the star power to succeed–but failed.
For example, Folks! featured Tom Selleck and Don Ameche in a movie about a family that critics called “pained performances in support of ill-advised ageist jokes.”
Police Academy 4: Citizen Patrol couldn’t be saved by the talents of Sharon Stone and Steve Guttenberg.
Staying Alive, starring John Travolta, was a disappointing sequel to his previous hit, Saturday Night Fever.
Another sequel that was a letdown was Jaws 4: The Revenge, which was just as lackluster as the original was suspenseful.
Sean Connery wasn’t the only actor ever to appear in a terrible movie in the middle of a stellar career. However, this flop was as extraordinarily bad as most of his work was good.
