More like a throwback to an earlier decade

Rating: 7/10 (9 August 2006)

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.
With a diverse cast of veterans (Christopher Lee, Robert Stack, Slim Pickens, Warren Oates, Ned Beatty, Toshiro Mifune, and Lionel Stander) and younger performers up-and-comers (Treat Williams, Nancy Allen, John Candy, Tim Matheson, John Belushi, and Dan Ackroyd), the movie never bores, giving each star a chance to show his/her comedic skills. Besides these performers, there are appearances by Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, and Lucille Benson, all actors that had previously appeared in Spielberg films. In smaller, yet equally amusing parts are classic "faces" Dub Taylor and Elisha Cook, Jr.
Some of the highlights of the film include a hilarious parody of the director's own "Jaws" at the film's start, an elaborately-staged dance/fight scene halfway through the film's two-hour-plus running time, and a spectacularly executed effect involving a Ferris Wheel. Also, John Williams's free-wheeling score adds just the right amount of lunacy to this over-the-top-pull-out-all-the-punches comedic epic.
This isn't one of Spielberg's best efforts and nowhere in the league of classic comedies, like "Some Like it Hot," "Blazing Saddles," or "Young Frankenstein". But it's light and comic enough to induce a bunch of smiles or two, even with its politically incorrect take on the war, American hysteria, the Japanese, and the Germans.