Disappointing third Evil Dead film.

Rating: 4/10 (14 February 2009)

Army of Darkness starts where Evil Dead II (1987) finishes with Ash (Bruce Campbell) finding himself stranded in the thirteenth century after he was transported back in time, there he is mistaken for an enemy warrior by Lord Arthur (Marcus Gilbert) & his men & taken prisoner. Back at Lord Arthur's castle Ash learns that unspeakable evils are terrorising Lord Arthur's people, in order to get back to the twentieth century & to rid the land of the evil Deadites Ash must undertake a quest to find the Necronomicon, or the Book of the Dead as Ash know's it. Ash has to go it alone as he faces trouble from the evil dead & the book itself along the way as he tries to get back home...
Co-edited, co-written & directed by Sam Raimi this is the third film in his Evil Dead franchise, also known under the title Army of Darkness: The Medieval Dead & shot under the working title of Evil Dead 3 the actual Evil Dead title apparently wasn't eventually able to be used due to copyright & legal problems caused by the collapse of the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group who financed Evil Dead II & co-produced this while it was still in business. To be honest with a distinct change in title there's a distinct change in tone as well since Army of Darkness simply didn't feel like an Evil Dead film to me or at least what I felt an Evild Dead film should feel like. While the first two Evil Dead films were classic black comedy horror films with with lots of gore Army of Darkness tones the gore & horror down to virtually nothing & instead ups the slapstick comedy & visual gags to an almost unbearable level & as such Army of Darkness feels more like a Three Stooges (writer & director Raimi has often stated The Three Stooges were a major influence on him) outing featuring a few monsters. To be fair the film is quite likable & there are a few moments which might make some laugh but for me there were far more misses than hits in the joke & gags department & I really miss the horror & gore of the previous Evil Dead films. The films plot is also very poor when analyzed, Ash's quest doesn't seem that difficult & why didn't either Lord Arthur & his men or the Deadites retrieve the Necronomicon already? If they knew where the book was & how to safely get why didn't they? Why did they need to send Ash? Why didn't the bad guy's grab it already? The romance between Ash & Sheila feels pointless & why did they change the start & make it different to the end of Evil Dead II where Ash shoots that flying monster?
Confusingly Army of Darkness surely must be a contender for the film with the most alternate versions, there are theatrical cuts, TV versions, director's cuts all containing/missing/adding/removing unique material & to add to the confusion there's two different endings which seem to get used almost at random depending where you live. To be honest the differences are purely cosmetic, there's no change of story between most of the different version apart from the ending which is substantially altered. Most of the deleted/added scenes are just extension's of existing sequences or minor added scenes that don't affect the story too much. While I didn't find Army of darkness funny or particularly clever I was also disappointed with it's very overblown jovial atmosphere as opposed to the intense horror & gore of the previous Evil Dead films, to be honest there's no horror or gore here to speak of & this would surely rate as a 'PG' these days. Made at a time before CGI computer effects most of the ambitious effects sequences are achieved through matte paintings, composites & stop-motion animation. The stop-motion animated skeletons remind heavily of Ray Harryhausen's brilliant sequence from Jason and the Argonauts (1963) also featuring skeletons. The film has a fun visual style with Raimi using all sorts of camera tricks & editing techniques.
With a supposed $11,000,000 budget Army of darkness was by far the biggest budgeted Evil Dead film to date & Raimi uses the money to create an all out war film set in a medieval fantasy setting culminating in an epic battle between good & evil. The film bombed at the box-office & it's not difficult to see why to be honest. The acting is alright, Bruce Campbell has screen presence & is likable in this as he delivers the one-liners with aplomb while Bridget Fonda has a small role at the start.
Army of Darkness is occasionally fun & it certainly moves along like a rocket with barely a dull moment but somehow it just didn't do it for me, I didn't find it that funny & I really missed the intense horror, monsters, slime & gore of the previous films. Wathable but very silly & not entirely satisfying. According to the IMDb another sequel titled Evil Dead IV (2011) is currently in development.