Tries far too hard and fails more than it succeeds

Rating: 3/10 (16 January 2017)

Steven Spielberg was, like many people, part of my childhood, and to this day 'Jaws', 'ET', 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' are still favourites. 'Schindler's List' is also a masterpiece, and 'Jurassic Park' still leaves me awestruck with the revolutionary dinosaur effects.
Despite being widely regarded as Spielberg's biggest disaster, am personally not of the opinion that '1941' is quite his worst film. It's one of his worst, and on reflection his most disappointing considering the ideas and the talent, but to me 'The Lost World' (both that and the third were a disgrace to the original 'Jurassic Park') gets that dishonourable title.
'1941' has its moments where it succeeds. Technically, it looks fabulous, being beautifully shot (wasn't crazy about the dance scene in general but the cinematography in the scene was impossible to find fault with) and audaciously designed. John Williams delivers yet another rousing music score, not one of his better efforts but a very good and perfectly fitting within the film one all the same.
A few good scenes and standout performances. The ferris wheel and house destruction scenes are technical marvels, are wonderfully anarchic and extremely funny, and even more so the opening of the Coke and Slim Pickens scenes. Mustn't forget the 'Jaws' parody either. Of the cast, faring best are a wonderfully crazed John Belushi (a nothing part but Belushi makes the most of it), a hilarious Slim Pickens, Robert Stack as an army general who loves Dumbo, a nerdy and madcap Eddie Deezen and a wonderfully stoic Christopher Lee.
Others don't fare so well though. John Candy has nothing to do and looks bored, Dan Aykroyd is similarly wasted in a slapstick that is far too over-the-top and busy to find much entertainment value in, Treat Williams overdoes the aggressive condescension of his character and comes over as an irritating bully, Tim Mattheson and Nancy Allen are pretty bland and while good Lorraine Gray and Ned Beatty are underused.
Furthermore, '1941' suffers from being bloated and trying far too hard. It has too many characters, most of which either have very little to do or are sketchy at best or feature too much with not much interesting at all. Likewise there are also too many plot-lines, which gives the film a too busy and sprawling structure at times, the worst faring one being the love story subplot that just grinds the film to a halt and is truly dull.
Humour wise, '1941' has moments where it's funny, but too much of it is too loud, too over-egged, sloppily timed and gratuitously vulgar (this kind of humour has worked very well in other films like 'Animal House' but in those instances the timing was much sharper and less manic). The film takes far too long to properly get going, with the appearance of Slim Pickens being where it properly shows signs of coming to life. Despite the dazzling cinematography and a suitably intense brawl, the dance scene is not that interesting and goes on forever. The dialogue is crass and left me stone-faced rather than crying my eyes out laughing.
Spielberg shows expertise on the technical and visual front, but when it comes to momentum and keeping control of the too many plot strands and characters he fails and shows himself less than natural with comedy.
Overall, not a complete disaster but a lesser Spielberg effort that tries far too hard. While it succeeds in a few areas it fails badly in many others. 3/10 Bethany Cox