Sweet God I forgot just how cheesy this film was.
I went in expecting ''A Yankee in Camelot'' but ended up with a more ridiculous Monty Python. Or if we're going to be completely honest we ended up with the prototype to the Lord of the Rings movies. Which now makes me wonder why we bothered with those films to begin with.
Sam Raimi did in 120 Minutes what Peter Jackson took almost nine hours to do.
I'm quite impressed this movie was able to win me over. Starting out in the first few minutes I was a bit skeptical.
It was sillier than I remembered and it was very over-the-top. And I was honestly expecting to dislike the film towards the end.
After all that's what happens with Evil Dead 2. Although I found it enjoyable film, I still preferred the original. But there's just so many little weird things that work out for Army of Darkness that ultimately made me love it in the end.
First of all I'm a sucker for the setting. I don't know what it is about taking a modern contemporary person and sticking them back in time into some 1950s Reven 60s Hollywood adaptation of the Medieval World. But it just makes for such a fun story.
I guess because the world is so firmly lodged in fantasy. And unlike completely fictitious fantasy you don't have to sit down and reimagine the entire universe.
You don't have to create fake monsters and goblins if you don't want to because you can just use the trails of real-life kingdoms or already established mythology. Like the King Arthur story.
It's kind of comedic to say that though given that this movie is littered with fictional characters. You have the deadites already established from the older movies along with skeleton men look like the right out of Jason and the Argonauts and then a bunch of monster Goblin people that look like a half breed between the two. And once again to go back to that Lord of the Rings comparison they look like the prototypes to all the goblins and Orcs that came about in those films. Especially the evil Bruce Campbell with the Skellington on his head.
I'm just trying to imagine what people must have thought when this film first came out. Especially if you had no previous knowledge or information on its production. You're expecting this weird semi over the top horror film with comedy peppered throughout. But then the film comes out and it's the complete opposite. It's a ridiculous over-the-top slapstick comedy film with honest-to-god three stooges routines that has maybe one or two moments of actual horror suspense.
The best of those moments being when they're about to throw a into this mysterious hole in the middle of the castle that happens to contain some sort of monster. They throw some other guy in there and all you see is a fountain of blood squirt up.
Some people consider this to be the greatest cinematic Masterpiece of the age.
I don't go that far.
I think it's a fun overly enjoyable movie, but ultimately my enjoyment stops there. I'll give it one thing though.
It's better than the Lord of the Rings movies (which I also think they're perfectly fine) and I'm not entirely sure I ever want to watch Lord of the Rings ever again. When I could just sit down and see this*.
The antics of The Siege Warfare as the skeleton army tries to fight Ash and his newly upgraded our Theory and nights with their gunpowder in there ridiculous death car makes for far better entertainment than even the biggest CG armies of Mordor.
*I say all this as if I'm supposed to imply that Peter Jackson ripped off Army of Darkness in some way. Or unknowingly made a similar movie. I have to assume it's a complete inaccuracy.
I've never really looked into it but; I think Peter Jackson claimed himself that he was a massive fan of some of Sam raimi's work.
And that the to come from a very similar background.
I don't know, it's just one of those things I want to put in otherwise I sound like a jackass claiming one film was ripping off the other. When in reality it's probably closer to an omage. Or just a huge coincidence. Who knows and who cares.
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