GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Eric Stevenson This is an epic comedy that has a lot of good points but unfortunately it's weighed down by how it doesn't really know what it wants to be. Is it a comedic film trying to be dramatic or a drama trying to be comedic? A lot of the content just seems off place here. It's hard to tell what's meant to be taken as a joke. There's some pretty weird slapstick in this movie. You'd think a film based on World War II wouldn't have the disclaimer that any similarities to real people would be included. Well, I guess the story is pure fiction.A lot of the characters just come off as mean in this. They just randomly have soldiers and sailors fight each other. The fights don' even make sense. Still, it's definitely a big nice looking film. It's great to see an all star cast of John Belushi, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and Christopher Lee in this. They're not at their best, but these are all fine actors. I guess it might be worth it for a quick Christmas watch. There's a lot better and lot worse stuff out there. **1/2

ofpsmith After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor paranoia swept across the nation as the United States was swept into World War 2. One of the most prominent areas of paranoia following December 7th was the West Coast, in particular California cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Nothing like the films events occurred in real life, but at the time it was a real concern. The plot of 1941 is in the context of this paranoia. While the film isn't great (especially by Steven Spielberg standards), to say the film is boring would be false. One of the best things about the movie is the characters. There are a few throw away characters but those played by Dan Akroyd, John Belushi, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee, Ned Beatty, John Candy, Warren Oates, and Slim Pickens are a lot of fun to watch, even if some of them aren't in the movie very long. There's also a bunch of great gags. But the flaws are pretty prevalent as well. As funny as some of the jokes are, there's also other ones that are just painful or awkward. In conclusion, the film is relatively enjoyable but the flaws can leave you imagining how it could have been a better movie. I do recommend it as it is very entertaining, but the flaws exist.

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.

jmillerdp Apparently, Spielberg and Zemeckis think it's hilarious! to have a "comedy" mocking Californians who would understandably be scared after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.Would Spielberg think that it would also have been hilarious! to have a comedy mocking New Yorkers who were understandably scared after the Muslim attacks of 9/11?As out of it as Spielberg is, I am guessing so. Many of his fellow Jews ranged from confused to horrified when he used Nazis as cartoon villains in the Indiana Jones movies.Maybe "Schindler's List" was Spielberg's way of trying to regain credibility among his fellow Jews. But, here with "1941," he's clearly oblivious.** (2 Out of 10 Stars)