Review of Army of Darkness: Limited Edition 2 Disc Set

Video

Where do I start with this review? Well, I have reviewed this movie once before (browse the reviews section and go have a read if you like) and thought it would be interesting if I reviewed the special edition as well, kind of like Army of Darkness revisited. This is a 2 disc set so lets take them one at a time.

Disc one is the same cut of the movie as the original DVD release but has been re-mastered, THX certified and given a brand new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. One complaint I had from my original review was the picture quality. Whilst good in places it was a touch ropey in others. The re-mastering has been worthwhile and there is an overall improvement in the picture however it isn’t as impressive as I was expecting. There are scenes (take a look at Ash’s first encounter with Arthur) that still have some marking on. I really thought they would have remedied scenes such as this. The windmill sequence (one which was very poor quality on the original disc) has been improved but is still not as good as I would have hoped.

On to Disc two. Yummy, this is collector’s stuff indeed. This disc contains the original version that was submitted to the film studio by the director (Sam Raimi). It’s interesting to see what was cut to get the running time down. Makes me laugh as the studio thought that 96 minutes was too long so cut it to 81 minutes, they would have shat their pants had they ever had a movie like Titanic (3 hours plus long) to edit :). I should mention that there is no pretension that this disc is re-mastered in any way. Picture quality is now back to the same as the original DVD release, good in parts and ropey in others. This disc is not about quality though, it is about extra footage so I won’t be too harsh. Re-mastering would, of course, have been nice on this disc but I am happy just to have a never before seen cut of a great movie.

The actual look of the movie is, not surprisingly, the same as the original DVD release. No, this isn’t a reviewer’s cop out; this disc was re-mastered not re-filmed ok :). The effects are adequate in places, good in others. Remember that this was made in the days before CGI (yep we are talking about the dark ages) so cut it a little slack. Still, the effects do their job.

Audio

Disc one contains a swanky new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack which sounds great. Whilst there are no sequences that would ever be classed as demonstration quality it is a big improvement over the original Dolby Digital 2.0 affair. There are many parts that show off the new soundtrack to good effect (the monster chasing Ash through the forest is a good comparison piece), jeez even the opening titles sound so much better. This is definitely a very worthwhile re-mastering indeed.

Disc two, as mentioned earlier, sports the older Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. It is still good but after hearing the new version it sounds weaker than it did previously.

Music wise we are treated to a great soundtrack from a composer by the name of Danny Elfman. Does the name ring a bell at all? Well it should do. He is the man responsible for some of the best movie music of recent times. His list of work is long and distinguished and includes films such as the first 2 Batman movies, Mars Attacks, Men In Black and even the theme tune to The Simpsons. His efforts here really elevate certain scenes, scenes such as where Ash approaches the Book of the Dead are given an ethereal feel by and the attack by the Army of Darkness could have been ruined had the music not hit the spot. This soundtrack is very reminiscent of the one which he wrote for Batman Returns and I loved that one too :)

Features

Right, a collectors edition lives or dies on the strength of it’s extras as a large percentage of it’s target audience will already own any previous versions of the movie. Here’s what we get on this double pack.

There is the obligatory audio commentary on the uncut movie with Bruce Campbell (Ash), Sam Raimi (Writer/Director) and Ivan Raimi (Writer). This is really amusing and very interesting indeed. There is some great banter between Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi and shows the fact that they were school mates. I was really looking forward to hearing Bruce Campbell’s take on the movie and I was NOT disappointed in the slightest. My only criticism . . . it was all over too quickly, I could have listened to them for hours.

The 2nd disc (containing the uncut version of the movie) contains 15 minutes of additional footage which, whilst not adding a hell of a lot to the movie, does help to explain some parts a little better (mainly the windmill scene). Also some scenes now appear in a different order as well which is a little bit different compared to other uncut versions of movies. The gem here is that this version contains the full original ending. This ending was deemed too depressing by the studio so a new ending was shot (the S-Mart ending). Personally I prefer the S-Mart ending as it includes some more class Ash quotes but the original ending is more than a little unexpected. This ending is also included as an extra on disc one as well.

Disc two (the uncut version) contains 4 more deleted scenes . . . ok so the uncut version was cut but these were scenes cut by the director and not demanded by the movie studio. I have never seen deleted scenes handled like this before though as these ones are also accompanied by audio commentaries by the same group as did the full length commentary. Great stuff, we get to hear why they were cut straight from the man who cut them, cool.

We also get a documentary titled “The Men Behind The Army”. Again very interesting and makes you realise just what they managed to achieve with so few resources.

Finishing up we also have storyboards, talent bios, stills gallery and a theatrical trailer.

Simply having the uncut version with commentary makes these first class extras in my opinion, add to that yet more deleted scenes, commentary, documentary and this set of extras gets a big thumbs up.

Conclusion

Ok, the movie itself. I love it, I loved the original DVD release and I adore this one. I won’t go over the plot of the movie again. Nor will I go on about the coolness of the Ash character. If you are considering buying this movie you have almost certainly seen it before. This is about whether it is worth purchasing considering you may already own a version of this movie already.

You will need to ask yourself if you are a real fan of this movie. The fact that the extended version is not re-mastered will put allot of people off, as will the very steep retail price of $44.98 (can be purchased for $31.45 on most DVD web sites though). If you loved the movie then this collectors edition is well worth it. If you simply enjoyed the movie but haven’t watched it that many times then perhaps this might not be your cup of tea.

Since writing the section about video quality I have read many opinions from other web sites and there appears to be somewhat of a revolt happening against Anchor Bay (the DVD makers) regarding the poor quality of the uncut version on disc 2. I agree that the quality of the uncut version is poor overall but I didn’t by it expecting a THX re-mastered directors cut.

So to sum up this one is really for fans only, but if you are a fan you are in for a real treat indeed :)