Needs More Nikto

Rating: 5/10 (28 April 2015)

(This review is for the 96-minute director's cut.)
A film that aims to please as much as "Army Of Darkness" does shouldn't be too hard to enjoy. But a weak story and flat characterizations did limit my enjoyment of director Sam Raimi and star Bruce Campbell's signature inventiveness.
The last of Raimi's acclaimed "Evil Dead" films that all featured Campbell, "Army Of Darkness" marks a major tonal shift for the series, as the horror elements that dominated the first two films are replaced by humor, and the eerie original setting of an isolated cabin is swapped out for an unconvincing medieval Europe.
Ash (Campbell), deposited in the Middle Ages at the end of "Evil Dead II," makes an uneasy peace with Lord Arthur (Marcus Gilbert) and his people. Ash goes out to find the Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead, which has the power to send Ash back to his own time. Ash finds it, along with much trouble, all because Ash forgot the last word of an intonation he was supposed to deliver when taking the book. Leave it to Ash.
"Did you speak the exact words?" Ash is asked by Arthur's bearded wise man (Ian Abercrombie), whom Ash calls "spinach chin."
"Look, maybe I didn't say every single little tiny syllable, no," Ash replies. "But basically I said them, yeah."
At the head of the evil horde roused by Ash's miscue is a familiar looking character, Evil Ash (also Campbell, in heavy make-up.) The series premise didn't start out being about Ash's stupidity, but that was what it became by "Army Of Darkness," now doubled by Ash's cruel-but-equally-dim doppelganger.
Watching the two trade macho quips and get fooled by each other is fun for a while, but as "Army Of Darkness" goes on it becomes obvious Raimi doesn't have much else on offer this time. He's still got that ingenious hyperkinetic style, with POV shots of flying arrows and catapult boulders, but as a story it seems oddly artificial. The other "Evil Dead" films were artificial, too, but their accent on thrills and gore made this easier to accept.
Here Raimi and Campbell double down on the comedy. Sometimes, it works, as when Ash and Evil Ash first meet and we find out why Evil Ash gets to wear such over-the-top make-up for the rest of the film. Yet the reliance on catch phrases gets annoying, as every action scene seems an excuse for a close-up of Ash saying something like "Come to Pappa" or "Gimme some sugar, baby."
There are bits of story that seem to get away from Raimi and his brother/co-screenwriter Ivan Raimi, like an alliance between Arthur and a rival lord which comes out of left field. And why is Bridget Fonda in this movie? She's gone after two minutes in a non-speaking role, yet was at the time by far the most recognizable face in the cast. If it was an in-joke by Raimi, I didn't get it.
The director's cut also suffers from a lame trick ending, which I won't give away except to say it is both too obvious and too heavy. I would have minded it even more if I had cared about the characters.
Mostly, the problem with "Army Of Darkness" is that it both requires familiarity with the other two "Evil Dead" films to understand at a basic level, yet pulls away so dramatically from what you expect going in as to make that backstory not only unnecessary but counter- productive. It's a strange film on its own, often funny and exciting, yet on the whole disappointing, too.