Army of Darkness movie review

Army of Darkness is the third installment of the Evil Dead franchise, and a direct sequel to Evil Dead 2. In this film we have Ash (Bruce Campbell) start where we left him in Evil Dead 2, which is in the 1300s being confronted by an army of knights. He is guessed to be allied with the enemy army, so they throw him in the pit, though the old wise man continues to say that he is the prophesied man from the sky who would come and save the people. But Ash has no intention of being a hero, and is only interested in getting home to his own time. So he agrees to go on a quest to find the Necronomicon as the wise old man said that it is the only way that he can be returned back to his own time, though when he obtains the book it is important to say these magic words (which are actually from the movie The Day Earth Stood Still), but of course Ash forgets the words and ends up summoning an evil version of himself, who then leads an army of skeletons to take the Necronomicon back, and the rest of the movie is leading up to and then the battle for the Necronomicon. This movie follows it's predecessors in that in addition to it being a horror movie, it is also a slapstick comedy, though this movie also adds in fantasy elements to the horror comedy. It is obvious that this film had a much larger budget to it, and that a lot of that budget was used in the Ray Harryhausen inspired stop motion skeletons, the final battle scene looked like a much larger scale version of the skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts. This is a great movie, the comedy is funny, the action is intense, and there are definitely the classic horror elements that the first two movies were known for. This movie however definitely scales back the level of gore that we saw in the previous two movies in the series, which doesn't make it any better or worse, just different. The cast was alright, other than Bruce Campbell honestly no one else in the cast stuck out as being very decent. Also the copy of the movie that I have is a special edition version that includes the original ending, rather than the more optimistic ending that was in the theatrical release, and I noticed that the video quality was kind of grainy, which was surprising to see on a DVD, but I actually really liked that graininess as it felt like I was watching it on VHS. I also liked that they took the story out of the cabin in the woods and set it in midieval times, it added a nice change to the story, and opened up new and much larger opportunities of where the story could go, this movie also helped to establish the name of the creatures that the book summons, as the deadites. Over all a really fun silly horror/fantasy movie. Would I recommend this movie? Yes, definitely, it is a great fun movie, and a nice break from the more serious horror movies. I love that this move doesn't take itself serious at all, and plays out much like a cartoon, and Ash is totally a cartoon character, and it works really really well. If you are ever looking for a fun movie to laugh at with your friends, this one is a good choice. Also there is a lot of great quotable one-liners in this film that are kinda fun.