A definite step down from the first two installments

Rating: 6/10 (27 May 2009)

What happened to the horror elements? Although the first two Evil Dead films show some touches of pitch black humor and camp (much moreso in ED 2), the series to this point had gallons of gore and some legitimate moments of grotesque horror. In Army of Darkness, Raimi strips out the horror elements almost entirely, ups the slapstick humor and ends up with a film that feels like Jason and the Argonauts meets the Three Stooges.
On the plus side, this is the film in the series that features the best of Ash's misogynist, cocky and moronic one-liners. Bruce Campbell is such a great screen presence that he carries the film all by himself for a good half hour. The set designs are decent in a crappy Terry Gilliam kind of way and Raimi's visual flare and bizarro camera angles are always welcome.
The problem is the story and the change in tone. Around the midway point though the novelty of seeing Ash in the fantasy dark ages started to wear off and the humor in the film was a little too broad (i.e. juvenile) to sustain itself. I recently let my 9 y/o daughter watch Army of Darkness - she has NO tolerance for horror films and thought this movie was a riot. Army of Darkness isn't scary at all.
If Army of Darkness is the first of the "Evil Dead Trilogy" you've seen you'll probably like it a lot more than I did. I think my love of the first two films has a lot to do with my disappointment in this installment.