The exact moment when the doodoo hit the fan.

Rating: 1/10 (30 July 2003)

There is a scene in `1941' where a German general and a Japanese submarine commander (all over-simplified and therefore hateful racial stereotypes) have kidnapped a hapless country hick (Slim Pickens) and are coaxing him to defecate because he has swallowed a toy compass from a box of Cracker Jacks, that is apparently the only way for their stranded submarine to find its way out of Los Angeles harbour.
This scene is not only important because of the way it heralds countless instances of toilet and body fluid humour in Hollywood movies for decades to come. It also acts as a metaphor for the film itself: a bunch of grown men who should know better, hopelessly looking for a sense of direction amid what is basically human excrement.
`1941' is one major stinker. What can you say about the intelligence of a script based on events that happened in 1942, that calls itself `1941'? About scriptwriters who apparently hadn't even graduated to potty-training when they wrote this piece of drivel, are responsible in a large degree for the general dumbing-down of America and who went on to write even more infantile opuses like `Forrest Gump'? About a storyline that depends on the public's acceptance of attempted date rape as an amusing premise? About cameos by self-destructive over-the-top substance-abusing actors just this close to an overdose as a medium of entertainment?
In my book, `1941' is an important historical milestone in American consciousness. Shot in 1979, it marks the exact moment in time where American movies graduated from simple self-indulgence (i.e. `The Godfather' and countless other films in its wake, glorifying guns, cars, gore, sadistic violence, dismemberment, disloyalty and organized crime as a favourite form of family entertainment) to grossly excessive special-effects-driven children's fare (`Star Wars' and its ilk).
It is probably besides the point to add that this film is extremely strained and unfunny and that even its musical score (by John Williams) sounds like Sir Edward Elgar conducting a symphony orchestra during a controlled flatulence contest.
I truly resent one commentator's comparison of this film to `It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' which had a sharp, clear morality, which is that greed is not only bad, it is ridiculous. What is the moral of `1941'? Anyone? War is funny? Thank you. I rest my case!
To be perfectly fair, writer Zemeckis did eventually obtain redemption for his youthful indiscretions by directing such fine films as `Contact' (an ode to human reason, dedicated to the memory of Carl Sagan) and `What Lies Beneath', which is just plain good.