One thing that helps with that is the setting. The story isn’t totally out of left field, but it does add new elements and generally just shakes things up a little to add some variety to the series. Those of you who read my review for the second film may recall that my biggest criticism of it was that it felt quite like a remake of the first. This one also goes in a different direction from the other two, which I appreciated. As a horror fan, I’m fairly familiar with a lot of his other stuff, but his style carries over well to this movie and seeing him do something of a perversion of his usual persona was quite fun for me. It was also a nice surprise to see John Saxon in here. They’re still funny, still easy to root for, and they really elevate the material to make it work as well as it can. For instance, while the script’s goofy nature does leave it feeling tonally somewhat at odds with itself, this is helped along quite a bit by Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold, who are just as good as ever. But what does it get right? I think quite a bit. So yes, there are certainly plenty of issues here. This leaves the film feeling somewhat lacking in this department and without a clear aesthetic identity. Plus, on a smaller note, John Landis’ direction doesn’t have the more naturalistic quality of the first film, nor does it retain the larger than life grandeur of the second. This movie, on the other hand, has moments throughout that are truly surprising in how absurd they are, due either to the impossibility of the physics at play or the unlikelihood that certain characters would behave the way they do. The second one was more heightened, but it still had logic to it, which kept it from going completely off the rails. The first one was, for the most part, pretty gritty and realistic. This silly tone also extends to the action sequences,which are a fair bit more far-fetched than what we’re used to from these.
Sometimes they’re able to make it work, but there are definitely other times where the humor elicits little more than an eye roll. It goes for a bit of a goofier and wackier sense of humor that doesn’t quite mesh with the tone of the franchise. I’m going to do this one backwards and talk about the problems I have with it first so that we have better context when I try to defend this later on.įirst of all, it is the least funny in the series. I don’t know how controversial this is, but my opinion is that while it’s definitely the weakest of the three by a fair bit, it’s still ultimately an enjoyable film.
I haven’t yet looked into just how maligned this installment is, but I do know that it is not well-liked. Having seen the first two films in this trilogy, I was curious to watch this one, in part because it’s definitely the black sheep of the series.
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