Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

CinemaClown There comes a time in every new filmmaker's career when a few initial successes makes them feel invulnerable and leads them to believe that they can do anything and get away with it, only for their hubris to be mercilessly destroyed when their next project turns out to be an absolute disaster.1941 is an end product of Steven Spielberg's hubris that presents the now revered filmmaker tackling the genre of comedy after finding astonishing success with Jaws & Close Encounters, but this time he spectacularly fails at it. Arguably the worst film of his career, 1941 is nothing less than an eyesore.Set during the Second World War, the story of 1941 follows the hysteria that grips the Californians in the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbour. As paranoia sets in & chaos erupts all over the state, civilians & soldiers prepare for the Japanese invasion, while a lost Japanese submarine sends its crew to scout out the madness.Directed by Steven Spielberg, 1941 finds the director trying way too hard in an effort to make the audience laugh but he only ends up making a mess of everything in the process. It appears as if Spielberg simply wanted to blow everything up and had his wish fulfilled with this big budget, big cast comedy that isn't even remotely funny.The film is an exaggeration of everything. All the set pieces are either destroyed or blown up by the end. People keep falling here n there throughout the movie. All the characters are hyperactive. Performances are equally crazy, and not in a good way. Still, its energetic camerawork, extravagant special effects & John Williams' score is a plus.On an overall scale, 1941 is a poorly conceived, awfully written & terribly executed example of blockbuster filmmaking and is a rare failure from a filmmaker who would later go on to become one of the greatest storytellers of all time. In retrospect, it's a bitter medicine that Spielberg needed, for 1941 didn't just knock some sense back into him and sober him up but also made him savour his future successes and not take his reputation for granted. A necessary dud.

ejonconrad I remember really looking forward to this movie when it came out. It was hyped like crazy and it starred pretty much everyone I thought was funny at the time. I also remember sitting there trying to will myself to laugh as it sunk in what a terrible movie it was.I recently re-watched it, and it's even worse than I remembered, because even the stuff that was mildly entertaining 40 years ago hasn't aged well.Where to start? One word: cocaine. That's the only thing that can possibly explain the frenetic misfire that is this movie. First of all, there's an absurd number of characters in an absurd number of subplots. On top of that, the subplots have bizarre details thrown in. For example, Treat Williams' "hilarious rapist" (rape is funny, right?) character has a weird phobia of eggs. What does this have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing.The movie relies excessively on Three Stooges-style spit takes and prat falls. There's also a lot of screaming: "Japs!", "Invasion!", "Someone help! (this guy is trying to rape me)".This time, I watched the extended version, and even at 2 1/2 hours (!!), it seemed like a lot of stuff was left out. A couple of the threads are wrung out in excruciating details while others seem to have missing chunks. There's a big build up to Warren Oats' appearance, but then it just comes and goes. Did he have more scenes on the cutting room floor? One guy has a ventriloquist's dummy for....some reason. Did they plan to do something more with it? like, something funny? How exactly did John Belushi end up flying around alone "looking for Japs"? So much of the humor is badly misplaced. I mentioned the attempted rape. We're not talking Brutus chasing Olive oil. We're talking Treat Williams dragging a woman under a car as she screams for help - and this is basically played for laughs, with another woman disappointed he's not trying to rape her. Also, the big fight is clearly supposed to be the zoot suit riots (which actually happened in 1943). There was absolutely nothing funny about those. Soldiers and white civilians were straight up assaulting Mexican-American youths while the authorities looked the other way, or even joined in. A solid half of the movie is devoted to destruction of property. In fact, I'm pretty sure Spielberg started with a list of who he wanted in the move and another list of the things he wanted to destroy and just sort of wrote the movie around them. All this destruction was impressive when the movie was made, but now the whole thing literally looks like a Universal Studios tour.I can't think of another example of this much talent being wasted in a single movie. There was all the hot comic talent at the time: Dan Ackroyd, John Candy, John Belushi, Tim Matheson, etc, and classic stars like Slim Pickens, Christopher Lee, and Japanese star Toshiro Mifune, and lots of other big names at the time, like Nancy Allen and Treat Williams. Not to mention a few characters recycled form Spielberg's other movies. Everyone was tripping over themselves to be in a Spielberg movie. It took real work for that cast of characters to turn in something this awful.Weirdly, John Williams' score is quite good. Too bad it wasn't used for a better movie.

dougdoepke Arguably, the worst A-budget movie ever made. It is to the average movie what a splatter painting is to a Rembrandt. For the same money blown up by these clowns, a hundred decent films could have been made. It's like some nutjob at Paramount gave 35-million to a bunch of 12-year olds and told them to blow it up real good. Except they blew it up real bad. I don't know what this nitroglycerin mess was reaching for, but it's like nothing I've seen in some 65-years of movie watching. Apparently, impresario Spielberg was suffering from a temporary lobotomy, proving I guess that even the best can have periods of blackout. He should be glad there's no law against cinematic crimes like this, otherwise he'd be in the Big House. All in all, the mindless repetition is about as funny as two-hours of world destruction where no one feels pain except the audience. No need to go on. Words, as they say, don't begin to suffice. A Big Fat "O" on a scale where the Three Stooges rate an artistic "10".

eric262003 If you like war-themed comedies like "Kelly's Heroes", "MASH" and sitcoms like "Hogan's Heroes" didn't tickle your funny-bone, maybe Steven Spielberg has the key to find your sense of humour. When it came out in 1979, "1941" was custom made for fans who want to avoid subtle comedy and love their comedy to be loud, punchy and over-the-top. Sadly, this movie failed at the box office, But when I got the DVD, I actually enjoyed it, not like in a life-changing perspective, sort of like a guilty pleasure.There was once a rumour that went on the before Robert Stack ("Unsolved mysteries") took the role of General Stilwell, dramatic actors like John Wayne and Charlton Heston were considered for the part. But they rebuffed at the request because of their military background, they thought this movie was irreverent to the real Pearl Harbor incident.However, setting of the story is real and the details were very accurate. In the year 1941, Americans had a look of concern after they bombed the Japanese, fearing that the Japanese would retaliate by bombing the United States, particularly California as the entire city of Los Angeles was abuzz with fear, paranoia and it showed America at war with a different perspective in their emotional stances. Not to offend anyone, but Americans have made us think that they were brave, fearless and practically laughed in the face of danger. But here we see a refreshing look that proves otherwise. American soldiers were no different from other nations as fear, insecurity and uncertainty was manifesting through the minds of millions of Americans. Japan actually got their revenge, but it was in Washington State, but it didn't last long. Americans protected themselves by setting up concentration camps towards Asian-Americans.And yet, Spielberg had succeeded to take the time to actually find reason to laugh at all the hysteria. No wonder Wayne and Heston refused to participate in the movie. Sadly for them, this movie was absolutely hilarious in a slapstick manner that works on many levels. the plot was quite narrow thin, just a plethora of gags and spoofs that carry the film in its two hour duration. It may not be for everyone, but before you make any judgments, see it for yourself, even if its for a rental.The DVD extras feature some very special tidbits, but one of my favourite feature is the "making of" and the cast interviews. There's a cornucopia of details in that relates to the scenes featured and scenes they attempted, but didn't quite work including the torpedo coming after civilians. Mr. Spielberg takes the liberty to showcase some home movies that he filmed himself as an inspiration for the making of his project.The cast is filled with top notch comical actors including the late John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, John Candy, Slim Pickens among others. Not to mention lesser comical performers like Christopher Lee, Robert Stack, Tosiro Mifune and Treat Williams.The interface can at times be quite troubling. For instance when selecting a scene, it shows sets of six per scene. Unlike other DVD's in this movie, choices are not featured unless you press ENTER. Unless you remember the scene options you will likely be lost. It's unorthodox that they refrained from automatic switching like on every other DVD. It may not be anamorphic, but it's still in letterbox.If you're into comedy especially the crazy antics of John Belushi and company as it spoofs a weak point in American history during WWII. And if you're all good sports about a comedy poking fun at a time when there was little to laugh about, then you might enjoy this movie. Even if this movie is not your cup of tea, at least check it out before you start to cast the first stone.