1941 -- A Comedy? Directed by Steven Spielberg (Lean And Mean III Review)

Some movies have a hard time trying to stick with a specific theme, or genre when they are planned for an audience. In the case of 1941, we have a film that at the time, may have seemed fitting, but since then, has become a drab mix of failed comedy and second-rate action. Steven Spielberg Directed it back in 1979, and spent $35 million on making something that would seem spectacular to audiences. The film didn't make its mark in the U.S. though, and was considered a bomb at the time. The years have not been kind to it either, and it has all but disappeared from the Hollywood radar. The one saving grace for the film, is that it has developed somewhat of a cult following of fans that did enjoy the humor that was used. Unfortunately for me, I did not fall into that category.

Though I felt the film to be terrible from beginning to end, there was one saving grace for it, and that was the idea that the plot was centered around. It takes place just a week after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, and the thought is that the Japanese Navy's next target would be the United States mainland. This is a very interesting storyline, and makes the audience member think about what might have actually happened if California had been attacked. The good points end there though, as the separate plot-lines become blurred, overlooked, and sometimes it seems nobody cared about explaining some of the things that were happening in the film. The ironic part about it all, is that expectations for the film were made higher by the cast, and would have been better suited for bit actors.

Starring in the film were an eclectic mix of comedians that must have been intended to make the film that much more funny. But, what I think it ended up doing, was dragging the film down from what could have made it great. The themes of the movie were a little too serious for the actors, and I think that it was because of this that the jokes failed to make their marks. Plenty of people were given a lot of screen time, but nobody stood out as being the true "star" of this movie. Dan Akroyd, John Candy, Treat Williams, John Belushi, Ned Beatty, Robert Stack, and a few others were the main actors of the film. With the exception of Beatty, they all were in the armed forces, and took on the task of defending California against the invading Japanese forces. Each one of them was given a very shallow character, and I felt that only Belushi actually made the most of his character. In the case of Belushi, he played a pilot who was chasing a squadron of Japanese fighters through the hills of California. He is the only funny character in the film, but even he goes too far over the top at times.

1941 fails in everything that I need to make a film watchable. It has weak character development, it drags too often, and at times some of the jokes are so unfunny that it almost makes you scream out in pain. This will go down as one of the films that Spielberg should not have made, and unfortunately for the across involved, they should have chosen to do a different film as well. It must be pointed out that some of the themes were grounded in reality, and that the panic that some of the characters showed was actually felt during WWII, but the film fails to convey anything. I think it would have been better suited to be a dramatic action film, and to drop the comedy (at least that would have been watchable). As it stands though I recommend avoiding this film.


This is part of the Lean-n-Mean III write-off.