1941 (D) It's taken for granted that this movie is a flop. And yeah, it is a bad movie. But it's not bad in the way, say, anything by Uwe Boll is bad, or even bad in an Ed Wood Jr. kinda way. It's bad in that Stephen Spielburg is such an impersonal director, a movie with so many quirks in its script like this needed to be helmed by someone like Sam Fuller or John Milnus. That is, someone who's passion for storytelling is such that they could subvert the original intent of the screenplay. Hell, even Martin Scorsece or Brian DePalma could've done something with it. It feels like Robert Zemekis and Bob Gale, the screenwriters had an unfinished idea, took it to Fox, and Fox, flush with success from Star Wars and such, handed them a blank check. I believe it came out at a time when a lot of people were making their flop classics. Scorsece with One From The Heart, and Michael Cimino with Heaven's Gate, for example.
Spielburg just doesn't have in in him to make comedies. He's capable of throwing in zingers to underline his story, but that really isn't the same. I imagine there were, as late comedian Bill Hicks put it, a lot of 'fevered egos' on the set, like John Belushi, who wanted to make their own film independent of Spielburg's, but the overall effect is a big mess. Slim Pickens' character, for example, disappears from the film after he foils the Japanese sub crew's attempt to get a toy compass out of him. (Literally, that is.) And the final scene of Ned Beatty's family house
falling off the cliff seems more like a sadistic trick than a gag intended to deflate a pompous jackass.
It's worth watching for some good bits, mainly around Dan Ackroyd and his crew. I love the throw-away gag at the beginning where they're eating dinner in a cafe and just decide to wreck their meal 'for the consideration of future patrons of this awful diner'. But overall, it's just 90 minutes of Spielburg setting fire to hundred dollar bills and laughing like a b-movie Nazi...
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