A loser teenager in a Bubba Ho-Tep shirt tries to pick up a girl with lines like "Give me some sugar, baby." As much as the critic in me knows it's goofy, the boy who watched Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness forty-five times is smiling. My Name is Bruce is a movie made for fans of one of the best B-movie actors of all time, and the final product is a sometimes-clever, very self-aware ode to the people who know a lot of Bruce Campbell’s dialogue by heart from not just the big movies but also junk like Alien Apocalypse and Man with the Screaming Brain. Campbell has recently reached a new demographic (and arguable respectability) as "Sam" on Burn Notice, but, for those of us who grew up loving horror, the man will always be "Ash" from the Evil Dead movies. Written by Mark Verheiden (a scribe from Battlestar Galactica and Smallville) and directed by Campbell himself, My Name is Bruce falls apart long before the end of its 86-minute running time, but it does feature the horror icon's most enjoyable performance since Bubba Ho-Tep and should remind fans why they fell in love with him over two decades ago.

A drunken Campbell, fresh off the set of Cave Alien 2, sees a "Where Are They Now?" report on himself in his filthy mobile home and snaps. At the same time, the aforementioned teenager and his dumb friends unleash an undead warrior named Guan-Di in Gold Lick, Oregon, and kidnap the drunk and self-loathing Campbell to help save their small town. When he gets to Gold Lick, he mistakenly thinks that it's all an elaborate birthday present to show him that he still matters. The stupid plot is basically just a set-up for Campbell to spoof his on-screen image with a series of bad jokes and even worse special effects. He's essentially kidnapped by one of his crazed fans and forced to live out the sequel to Army of Darkness that we've all been hoping to see for years but is looking less and less likely to actually happen. My Name is Bruce is probably as close as we're going to get to Evil Dead IV.

The problem is that Bruce Campbell doesn't have the B-movie pacing of Sam Raimi, and Verheiden lets the actual plot of the movie get in the way of the good times. Everything about My Name is Bruce that doesn't feature Campbell spoofing himself is a bit off. But what keeps My Name is Bruce from total failure is that Campbell has more energy here than he has since at least Bubba Ho-Tep and arguably longer. He's clearly having an absolute blast, and it will be easily contagious for his fans.

But how is the "action/horror" in My Name is Bruce, the kind of blood-splattered slapstick that Campbell has sometimes done so well with the right director behind the camera? It's honestly pretty horrible. It feels like Campbell and Verheiden couldn't decide whether or not to go for action and scares, as Raimi clearly did in the Evil Dead movies, or just do a straight-up comedy with no intention of producing actual thrills. My Name is Bruce could have been more than parody and had an intriguing adventure of its own but its promising set-up is torpedoed by an increasingly stupid plot that takes precedence over the self-aware silliness. Some horrible racism, odd country theme song breaks, bad gay jokes, and awful action crowd out what works about My Name is Bruce - the reverse love letter to the fans that have kept Campbell a star.

Rating: TWO BONES

 Reviewed by Brian Tallerico (MovieRetriever.com Film Critic)

Release Date: November 28th, 2008

Rating: R

Starring: Bruce Campbell

Director: Bruce Campbell

Writer: Mark Verheiden