I am all for pure chaos in any movie. Throw in the kitchen sink while you are at it! A wild World War II movie with pure comic chaos is a great idea. Thrown in the kitchen sink, a few tanks, a Ferris Wheel, a Japanese sub, out-of-control war planes and general havoc. Steven Spielberg's "1941" is all that but it is not comical - it is just an expensive dumpster fire with unbridled chaos and nothing else.
The anarchic script by Bob Gale, Robert Zemeckis and John Milius doesn't seem written at all - they must have screamed the lines to each other and expected the actors to deliver in an over-the-top mode by screaming as well. The story takes place in the days following the tragic Pearl Harbor event of December 7th where an Imperial Japanese Navy sub is spotted in the Pacific Ocean. It is commandeered by no less than the titanic presence of Toshiro Mifune! Christopher Lee plays a Nazi officer on board the sub for reasons only clear to the writers of this unfunny mess. Since there are fears of another brazen attack by the Japanese (there is an interest in bombing Hollywood), every American is scared and they run around in a frantic pace. The military is preparing for this but their leader in command, General Stilwell (Robert Stack playing a real-life general), would rather cry at a theatrical showing of "Dumbo." You do have the lone swimmer from the opening of "Jaws" gracing the opening of this movie where she is almost impaled by a...Japanese sub. Darn. Then there is Slim Pickens as Hollis P. Wood, a lumberjack who tries to chop down Christmas trees inhabited by Japanese officers. Yeah, real funny stuff for about a second.
I enjoyed Ned Beatty as someone defending his home turf with an anti-aircraft arsenal that ends up destroying his own family home. Other than that and the zaniness of John Belushi (in a mostly extended cameo) as Wild Bill Kelso chomping on a cigar and flying through the streets of L.A. causing general mayhem, "1941" is needlessly overlong and overbaked and ultimately a "nothing" movie. A great cast flounders in this movie because they have zilch to do. There are no memorable characters or situations - Spielberg is directing traffic and reaction shots and not much else. I came away bored, not exhausted, and many of the film's racial jokes do not work and will cause mostly eye-rolling looks.The USO dance sequence is fun for a while but it is overextended (you'll forget Treat Williams is in this movie playing a character with an aversion to eggs). This movie is about endless destruction, fist fights and not much else - chaos is not by definition funny. Maybe it is about director Steven Spielberg's attempt to show America at war when it entered World War II. It feels more like Spielberg at war with himself.
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