I'm kind of surprised how much I hated this movie. Going in I was expecting a pretty simple plot buoyed by Raimi's slapsticky, wacky camera movement horror/comedy thing he's been mining since Evil Dead 2. Not surprisingly he didn't disappoint on this end, delivering all the frenetic gross-out moments fans have come to love from his films, even if several scenes were marred by dated looking effects. Everything else fell flat though, from a predictable story filled with clumsy exposition to wooden acting from just about everyone involved, a fun performance from Lorna Raver being a notable exception.

Understandably Raimi has always embraced the corny side of things in much of his work, but even knowing this I just couldn't go along for the ride this time. There were no surprises, nothing redeeming about the main characters to make me care about them and certainly no scares beyond cheap "gotcha" moments achieved by cranking up the volume and throwing something directly at the viewer. Just a lot of gags that were used to great comic effect twenty some odd years ago that aren't nearly enough to carry a film today.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

Let's not forget all those movies that sold quite a few tickets well before the 70's and terms like blockbuster were coined.

But yeah, Star Wars definitely put the whole merchandising thing on the map. For better or worse ...

4/10

Yelchin and Worthington somehow rose above an awful script littered with some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard ("Now I know what death tastes like!?"), making me care just enough about their characters so that I didn't fall asleep between action sequences. Speaking of which, the effects pieces were all well shot (no shaky cam bullshit) and the CGI convincing, so if that's all you are looking for then you will probably have a great time with this one.