Greatest. Movie. Ever. Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but I have seen Army of Darkness countless times, and it never gets old. I laugh at the same jokes and cheer during the same scenes. When I had heard that it was available on HD-DVD, I just had to add it to my rapidly growing collection.
Army of Darkness is the sequel to Evil Dead II, which is recapped quickly at the beginning of Army of Darkness. When Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell), a lowly employee at S-Mart, battles evil beings called Deadites at the end of Evil Dead II, a rift into time opens, sucking him and his beat-up 1988 Oldsmobile into England, 1300 AD. Why Ash winds up in England even though he lives in the U.S. isn't explained.
The local townsfolk are being terrorized by the Deadites and believe that Ash is the "Chosen One", destined to help them. Not believing this but desperate to get back to his own time, Ash makes a deal with the king of this town. Ash is to recover a book called the Necronomicon (aka The Book of the Dead, featured in the first two films as well), which has a spell that can be used to defeat the Deadites. The book also has a time travel spell, which the town's wise men can use to return Ash home. Naturally, things don't exactly go according to plan and all hell breaks loose - so to speak.
Unlike the first two Evil Dead films, which were more serious and strictly horror films, Army of Darkness is definitely a comedy, with a (bloody) splash of horror. One scene even has a Three Stooges homage. And in another scene, a hapless victim is thrown into a pit containing a Deadite. Seconds later, an impossible amount of blood explodes from the pit like a geyser. It's so silly that it's almost cartoonish. It's as if Raimi were poking fun of his first two films with the third one. That's what's so great about Army of Darkness—it's fully aware that it's so campy and silly.
Although Campbell's rugged good looks, tall stature and square jaw fit the bill, Ash is not your typical hero. He's actually a big jerk. He's rude, selfish, egotistical, condescending, and an impatient loudmouth. But Campbell still somehow makes us root for him, not only because he is a total badass, but because Ash spews some of the greatest movie lines of all time. In fact, Ash's quotes are so legendary that one was featured in the Warcraft III video game. Here are some examples of Ash's quotes in Army of Darkness, courtesy of the IMdB.
[In a passionate moment of romance]
Ash: Gimme some sugar, baby.
King Arthur: Are all men from the future loud-mouthed braggarts?
Ash: Nope. Just me baby... Just me.Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2
Article comments
1 - Iloz Zoc
Super review. I didn't know AOD was released on HD. I'm a big extras nut, so looks like I'll wait until Universal comes out with an HD edition that includes them. Surprised they just didn't add the existing ones from previous editions at least.
And with a great tagline like "Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas." This film is lots of fun.
2 - Matt Paprocki
"The only thing I can think of is that they'll put in these extras for some lame, "Special Edition" copy so they can sell more disks."
Ding! We have a winner. A new format launch and a popular movie means sales regardless of the extras. How many standard DVD versions were there? Six, seven? I wouldn't expect anything less here.
3 - Kaonashi
Iloc- Thanks! Yeah, I found out AoD was on HD-DVD when I was looking through Amazon for HD-DVDs to buy.
Matt- You have a point about the multiple DVD versions of AoD. Ridiculous! The funny thing is that so far, the other HD-DVDs I have are chock full of extras. Maybe it's just Universal that's stingy with the extras, because Warner Bros. sure isn't, and neither is Paramount.