Review of Army of Darkness

Video

Can I start by saying that I love this movie? s***, too late, just did. This will NOT cloud my judgement though so read on.

The picture quality is patchy at best. It is plain to see that the original print used was NOT up to much. Don’t get me wrong, in places the picture is superb but the poor spots vastly outweigh the good. It is still a massive improvement over the VHS version but the rough spots stand out more than you would have recognised before due to the clarity that DVD brings to the image.

Audio

The sound is a disappointment as well. No Dolby Digital 5.1??? Ok, so the Dolby surround is clear it simply begs for a full blown 5.1 soundtrack. Fortunately plans are afoot to rectify this (see the NOTE at the end of the review). Nuf said.

Features

Not really allot to say at all here. The usual handful of production notes and biographies (if I had wanted a book I would have bought one). The trailer is nice but this lack of extras simply doesn’t cut it nowadays.

Conclusion

Ok, forget all that I have written before and answer me this . . . why do you buy movies? No, not why do you buy DVDs, just movies in general. The answer has to be because it is good right? Well this movie is fantastic! It follows on from the end of Evil Dead 2 and pushes the humor introduced in Evil Dead 2 further still to create one of the most amusing movies I have ever seen. I was in stitches throughout this film, there are so many class lines and scenes throughout the movie I can’t even begin to list them here. The one word I would use to sum up this movie is cool. Bruce Campbell as Ash . . . he da man !!! this guy is great in whatever he appears in and he steals every scene. Of note is that this, of course, contains the original American ending (in the UK we were given a different ending completely when it was released on VHS). This new ending is also great, why it was left off over here is a total mystery. The whole movie is simply allot of fun, however, even though it is a must-have movie it is not a must-have DVD . . . and that p***es me off no end. Well ti did until I heard the following news (see NOTE)

NOTE : On the 12th October there is going to be a special edition 2 Disc set released containing an all-new remastered print and a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack !! Amongst other features this set will include every ending known to man, deleted scenes, and a commentary track from the man himself . . . Bruce Campbell – now that has gotta be worth hearing. I can’t wait.