| 90 |
Washington Post
Raimi offers all the fantasy, camp and hardcore horror you devoured in the comics. You can feel the pen-and-ink drawings coming to life. Dipping wittily into myth, the macabre and the modern, it's an effervescent adventure that's as amusing as it is genuinely gripping. [19 Feb 1993, Weekend, p.n38]
|
| 80 |
Los Angeles Times
Ash's dialogue keeps the movie just goofy enough that even audiences that don't go in for schlock-horror phantasmagorias will be tickled. [19 Feb 1993, Calender, p.F-8]
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Richard Harrington
Few American directors would dare to show as much over-the-top glee in their chosen craft as Sam Raimi does in Army of Darkness. [19 Feb 1993, Style, p.c7]
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
No matter what your opinion is of the movie, you're unlikely to be bored.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Much of the movie's charm, in fact, is derived from its sense of its own instant disposability. Raimi has created the cinematic equivalent of fast food-efficient, unassuming and seriously regressive. It may not be much good for you in the end, but consuming it is loads of fun. [19 Feb 1993, Friday, p.C]
|
| 70 |
Film Threat
Jeremy Zoss
Easily the most unique film in the trilogy, and in many ways the most fun.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
Enjoyably campy hokum.
|
| 60 |
Empire
Chris Hewitt
As a film in its own right, this quirky Ray Harryhausen tribute (a skeleton army!) rocks. As an Evil Dead film, though, it’s ultimately not funny, scary or gory enough.
|
| 60 |
Variety
Staff (Not Credited)
Blending almost nonstop violence with humorous parody, Sam Raimi's latest excursion into horror-kitsch seems more like an irreverent "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."
|
| 58 |
Entertainment Weekly
By the time Army of Darkness turns into a retread of "Jason and the Argonauts," featuring an army of fighting skeletons, the film has fallen into a ditch between parody and spectacle.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Fans of ultraviolent sword-and-sorcery nonsense will have a good time; others will head for the exit. [19 Feb 1993, Arts, p.10]
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
Army of Darkness would appeal to small children if it were not also too gruesome for them, since Ash does after all wield a chain saw. [19 Feb 1993, p.C10]
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Michael Gingold
Raimi is a master at pacing this kind of material, however, and never allows it to become redundant.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Army of Darkness has good moments and shows traces of wit right up to the end, though these moments wind up coming fewer and farther between. [19 Feb 1993, Daily Datebook, p.D1]
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
The movie isn't as funny or entertaining as "Evil Dead II," however, maybe because the comic approach seems recycled.
|
| 40 |
The New Yorker
Michael Sragow
Even diehard fans may long for something to hold the tacky flourishes together—a plot, or maybe even a guide that's more lucid than the Necronomicon.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
A poor man's "Excalibur," but the fact of the matter is that the film displays far too little of the incisor-sharp wit and out-of-control mayhem readily available in the other two films. It just doesn't work.
|
| 38 |
USA Today
The movie runs just 80 minutes, but it's enough time for doldrums to set in when nifty special effects and funny verbal exchanges are out grabbing a smoke. [19 Feb 1993, Life, p.5D]
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