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All Flixster |
(3973) |
1992 |
8294 |
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(1517) |
761 |
3168 |
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(2456) |
1231 |
5126 |
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Plot:
Watching this director's cut, it's finally possible to see why the studio made Spielberg mercilessly hack up this comedy: it's a screaming movie (everyone screams a lot), and screaming movies do not n...( read more 
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:August 2, 2008Comedy is hard. Tear Jerkers are easy.
Steven Spielberg tried to do a comedy and found out it wasn?t easy. It should have been funny. The cast is good. The stunts are good. The jokes are good. The special effects are good. But when it was all put together it just didn?t click. The re-cut extended version on DVD is better than the original cut released to the theaters. I think the set ups to the jokes were too quick in the original. In the DVD they take more time to set-up each joke so that it seems funnier. Spielberg?s style of fast paced action works well in action-adventure movies but falls flat in a comedy. In comedy you have to set up the joke then deliver the punch line. In a drama or action-adventure you can throw in a joke as comic relief and get a good laugh. I think he thought that if you just threw one punch line after another at the audience it would be funny. Instead the audience didn?t get half the jokes because they were trying to figure out the last one. Slim Pickens is great and has some very funny lines. Warren Oates and John Belushi also were funny. The problem is that they were side characters to the plot of the movie. The movie is based on an actual event that took place in December 1941 when the Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) in Los Angeles began firing at imaginary Japanese aircraft. The official version reported that they were firing at Unidentified Flying Objects. This was the first official use of the acronym UFO. He also threw in the many reports of Japanese submarines that occurred during the first months of the war and the Zoot Suit riots that actually took place later in the war. When watching this movie at home it is actually a pretty funny movie. For some reason when shown to an audience in a theater it couldn?t draw the crowd in and maintain the comedy. -
MCT:July 26, 2008
May be Spielberg's worst film, but that's like saying Da Vinci's worst painting: It's in a great body of work and just gets lost in the mix. It's hilarious!
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MCT:July 7, 2008
Often considered to be Spielberg's big flop, this is still a rollicking good time of a movie.
This is also the very first film I ever saw on a VCR. -
MCT:June 23, 2008This film gets way more flack than it actually deserves. I find it to be a very funny and re-watchable movie.
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MCT:June 22, 2008Widely considered to be Steven Spielberg's first bomb, this mess absolutely lives up to it's terrible reputation. The film has wonderful set design, but is otherwise non-nonsensical, disorganized, and worst of all it's completely un-funny. It's very strange that Spielberg, the director of Saving Private Ryan, once tried to make a comical farce about World War 2. Spielberg was clearly trying to simply throw a bunch of celebrities into a completely chaotic situation and hope that the ensuing craziness will be funny. Spielberg seems to have more or less disowned the film and never tried to make a straightforward comedy again, furthermore he's said that the film's terrible reviews were good for him in retrospect as it allowed him re refocus. If only M. Night Shyamalan could learn from his mistakes like that.
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MCT:June 15, 2008
Steven Spielberg worst movie, it WAS hard to watch. it does have some funny seconds here and there. the BIG SURPRIZE HERE IS THE ALL STAR CAST.
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MCT:June 3, 2008An unsung classic from the same team that brought us the Back To The Future trilogy. Written by Robert Zemekis and Bob Gale, and directed by Steven Spielberg. An all star cast goes for broke in the story of how paranoia gripped America in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everyone was sure they were next. Commies were everywhere, they were sure of it. John Belushi is "Wild" Bill Kelso, a renegade army pilot that is convinced that he's hot on the trail of hidden squadrons of Japenese Zeros. A wayard tank company led by Dan Aykroyd asks family man Ned Beatty to post an anti-aircraft gun in his front yard. Toshiro Mifune is the commander of a lone Japenese submarine that is determined to blow something up, having missed out on Pearl Harbor. So he and his crew set their sites on Hollywood. In their quest, they capture a local man named Hollis Wood, played ultimate redneck Slim Pickens. All of this going down while soldiers, saliors, and marines break out into an all out brawl during a USO dance. Lost of laughs and action, and some of the best miniature special effects work in cinema history. Standouts in that area is an attack by the Japenese on an amusement park (watch the ferris wheel), and a dogfight over Los Angeles between Belushi's P-40 Tomahawk, and an unarmed plane containg to hot and heavy lovers whose entry into the mile high club accidentally gets them identified as an enemy fighter. Steven Spielberg supposedly issued an apology for this movie when it bombed in theaters. No apology necessary, Steve. You should be proud of it. You've made FAR worse movies (Hook, AI, The Terminal).
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MCT:June 2, 2008
A comedy of epic proportions with an all star cast showing you the lighter side of the events surrounding Pearl Harbor. It may offend some while making others laugh till it hurts. For fans of cult films mostly!!!!!!!!
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MCT:May 30, 2008As a comedy, it's nothing short of abrasive. But I may have to try it as a silent film synced up to heavy metal.
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MCT:April 24, 2008i havent see it this movie since i was young and i dont really remember the whole rest of the movie. now i saw it so finally!
it about a comedy film in "spoof" pearl habor in that japanese attack in los angeles. there lot of casts.
great parody in "jaws" who also the same actress as "jaws" in the beginning of the movie in 1941. -
MCT:January 21, 2008
Not very funny. I might have a different opinion now that I'm older AND if I watched the director's cut.
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MCT:January 15, 2008
imperfect and disappointing. great cast, funny setting. it's just "off". like one big party with a huge budget and everyone there is having a good time.but you're not having a good time.
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MCT:January 10, 2008
You wouldn't know Steven Spielberg directed this classic comedy unless you read the credits. Fresh off their success with SNL...Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi and other stars will have you rolling throughout the film. You'll find it hard to believe their service members, but then again its a comedy.
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MCT:January 8, 2008
Hmm. I've talked a number of times about the near venomous response Spielberg receives in many circles I run in, and my disagreement with it, but this is a slightly different situation. This film was pretty widely panned but just about everyone on release, sandwiched between Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark its actual box office success, though minor, was dwarfed between such giants (nevermind Jaws!) and has left everyone believing that the film was actually a flop (only a comparative one!).
However, I was kind of in agreement here. The plot is all around the idea of a town wound up to hysterical panic after the attack on Pearl Harbor, with a small Japanese submarine attempting to incompetently attack the California coast. However, a lot of it deals with Wally Stephens (Bobby Di Cicco) trying to romance Betty Douglas (Dianne Kay) which is kind of a lame subplot, as he tries to keep her away from Cpl. Chuck 'Stretch' Sitarski (Treat Williams, as always excellent as a self-centered dick), who was pursued by her friend Maxine (Wendie Jo Sperber). There's Capt. Wild Bill Kelso (John Belushi, in a very Belushi performance, often called irritating or obnoxious, but I will say I disagree there) as an out of control fighter pilot flying around and shooting pretty randomly, some ground forces led by Sgt. Frank Tree (Dan Aykroyd) and Pvt. Foley (John Candy) who are setting up an anti-aircraft gun in the frontyard of the Douglas family (Ned Beatty and Lorraine Gary with kids), various folk around town also on the lookout for Japanese forces, and then even the Japanese sub itself, commanded by Akiro Mitamura (the great Toshiro Mifune) and Capt. Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt (the also great Christopher Lee).
The script was the work of Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis (aka "the two Bobs") with work from John Milius (best associated with, say, Red Dawn). Gale and Zemeckis have done great work--Used Cars is a fun little comedy, and of course the eminently entertaining Back to the Future trilogy, though I think some credit goes to the always-watchable Michael J. Fox there, but the films definitely hold together fantastically well. This one, however, does not. It's a huge bloody bloated mess, just like everyone says. A lot of the humour is telegraphed, a lot of the jokes fall flat, a lot of the gags take too long or go on too long, the characters are only interesting if the actor behind them is, and the whole thing is just too damn long.
There are tons of fun actors, most named above, but with other smaller roles for people like old Eddie Deezen, who you probably don't know by name, but whose voice you would almost definitely recognize within two or three syllables. Warren Oates is a poor shadow of George C. Scott in Dr. Strangelove. Slim Pickens brings some humour to a role that also recalls that Kubrick classic, Robert Stack is Gen. Joseph Stilwell and has a great scene watching Wild Disney's Dumbo, and even appearances from a shockingly clean-shaven (though ridiculously dusty) John Landis, the mighty Dick Miller (a character actor you SHOULD know, because he appears in almost everything--especially genre work), director Sam Fuller, Don Calfa (who I know from Return of the Living Dead), Nancy Allen as a woman with a plane fetish (you heard me), Michael McKean, Mickey Rourke--and quite happily, Joe Flaherty (more Canadian comedic talent, if you didn't know, fellow SCTV alumnus of John Candy).
But, as many have said--there's a lot of greatness here, in the writers, directors, actors, some set pieces, some great costuming, production and set design...but it never, ever gels. And I was a little miffed by the lighthearted approach to the "Zoot Suit Riots" after seeing the little bit of them depicted in American Me (which led me to researching the actual events, which were a little more toward that end, of course).
Disappointing, but I sort of expected it would be. -
MCT:December 26, 2007
Not everyone liked this movie and it could have been better, but I really enjoy watching John Belushi, he was just a natural comic.
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MCT:December 15, 2007
could have been much better, if it made war out to be what it is (bad the worse thing to ever happened) not how good it can be
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MCT:November 25, 2007
My problem, first and foremost, with "1941" is that it runs for far too long. it wouldn't have hurt to cut it down by half an hour. There aren't many comedies that deal with old WWII, but the American home-front was a great place to start. This all-star cast does a great job lampooning the patriotic civilians who go to extremes for their country. Some sequences are drawn out too long, but there are some scenes, like the ballroom dance that are too good not to watch.
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MCT:September 30, 2007
One more time: funny, bit tedious, a little too realistic for me. Classic JBelushi. A Must See. Look forward to the Directors Cut.
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MCT:September 14, 2007
along with starwars, we had 2 films on tape when i waws young, this was the other, very underated,spielberg herea great slapstick war film, very big and very dumb, but all the better for it, great all star cast too.
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MCT:September 1, 2007
It bombed at the box office but I think it's pretty darn funny. Only weakness is it gets a bit long.
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MCT:August 31, 2007
Spielberg's 1979 film seems as though it would fit squarely in the midst of such 1960 films as "The Great Race," "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines," and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World." Like those films, "1941" sports an all-star cast, spectacular set pieces and effects, and a relatively simple plot.
This was condemned as Spielberg's first flop, but for me I don't think its a flop at all. Yes it is very overloaded with visual effects and over the top performances but that's what makes this film is so funny.
Spielberg described the film as IAMMMMW meets Daffy Duck, the only difference between IAMMMMW and this is that the former had a coherent script to the madness, Spielberg on the other hand kept throwing stuff unsure of this film. In my opinion there is no plot to this film but is seven seperate subplots and it is all set on the coastal shores of Los Angeles of December 1941, days after Pearl Harbor. Unbestknowst the Americans a Japanese submarine has landed on the coast and plans to demolish the city. Chaos and paranoia ensues which causes a tremendous amount of damages.
This is an all out assault slapstick comedy that resembles a Mack Sennett Keystone Kops comedy, this is probably the last comedy to be just have pure slapstick and not alot of setup. Some scenes will be etched in your minds forever one of them includes the Japanese demolishing a ferris wheel and it rolls down the pier, another is a tank that Ned Beatty borrows from the army that destroys his house by the force of the blasts. And Some scenes is plain stupid and I felt did not correlate well with the film like the whole Tim Matherson/Nancy Allen subplot in an airplane.
If you are looking for a thought provoking comedy by all mean, "DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! But if you are looking for mindless comedy, I highly recommend you watch this movie! -
MCT:August 18, 2007Idiotic. An utter failure. The jokes are such a desperate attempt at humor. Boring mess of plot. Actually, that's too kind. There was no plot. As for the acting, pretty much every actor is mediocre at best, annoying at worst, and unfunny as par for the course. Groan inducing jokes.
Actually, if everyone had just played it straight, rather than trying so hard to be "hilarious" in every moment, it could have been really good. A darker comedy mocking the paranoia of the citizens could have been done well, instead of this over-the-top farce that seems to think that things blowing up is inherently funny.
This travesty of a movie lasted 2 1/2 hours. By far Spielberg's worst. If he hadn't directed it, I would have stopped wasting my time about 20 minutes in. 1941 is one of the least funniest comedies I've ever seen. A Comedy Spectacular it is not.
