It seems most people who see 1941 don't like it. What specifically is it you don't like? Certain scenes? Characters? Too long? Too loud? Certain actors?
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"I've never seen a sight, that didn't look better lookin' back".
It tries to be a wacky screwball comedy (like It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World) and fails completely. The film's entire idea of a joke is showing people screaming and stuff exploding. Over and over. For two hours!
I'm a big fan of Spielberg, but 1941 is the one film of his that I outright hate.
The OP asked what you guys HATED about this movie, not why some of you think this is a great and funny movie. Please start your own thread.
Why it didn't work for me:
Tons of money thrown into a movie that maybe shouldn't have been made in the first place. Bigger & better does not translate into funny and more funny.
A script that needed more work. The humor got lost somewhere.
A bunch of big stars with little parts and little to do.
Over emphasis on facial reaction shots (a Spielberg trademark).
Scenes so planned out to the smallest detail that it got in the way of the gag.
Sure, there were funny moments, but it just didn't gel as a whole.
Because it's not funny. It tries to be satirical but fails.
And becasue all the actors waste their talent.
It's overwrought, yes, but so is "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."
I like them both, but they're guilty of the same cinematic and comedic "crimes."
For the following reasons:
The Characters.
There were too many, and not all of them were worth following along with. More than a few were way out of place, and thus didn't work when it came to being funny (the Nazi officer on board the Jap sub who could only speak German is a huge example). As mentioned in this thread, a number of comedians were wasted in their specific roles. IMO, if there had been a few less characters in this movie, it may have been funnier, and more direct.
The Subject Matter.
There are ways in which a parody/satire/sendup can really work. Movies like Airplane! and Hot Shots! work because of their subject matter, where they parody one genre in particular in a certain way which makes it hilarious. 1941 fell flat because WWII was a real war, and they tried to parody something that was still fresh in a lot of people's minds at the time. They played on the hysteria that rocked America in the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, along with the belief that Japanese forces were planning an invasion of mainland USA. And to portray that the US military was incapable of handling such a threat was just downright disrespectful to the real US military of the day, when compared to history.
The Film's Length.
Yeah, this was an issue to me. It could've been half an hour or more shorter than it was, and it would've told a better story.
Other Little Things:
Wild Bill defecting to the Japs after spending the whole movie preaching how great America was.
The US military bombing one of its own cities, and firing on its own air force.
Eddie Deezen.
The Japanese weren't funny. Also, they were the only ones that didn't suffer any kind of setback that befell virtually everybody else.
There was next to no character development. Hell, even today's crappy parody movies have more than this movie did.
The announcement that 1942 would be a much crazier year in the war. Yeah, like the Fall of Singapore, the bombing of Darwin, the Battle of Java, the Burma Railway, Kokoda, Guadalcanal... and that's just the Pacific theatre. Try making a comedy out of all that!!!
They call me the wanderer.
Wild Bill doesn't "defect," he surrenders. He may be crazy, but he's not stupid.
shareIt's clear that this movie was way over your head and you missed the point entirely.
shareI can't remember what I don't like. I thought the whole thing was a fun roller-coaster. Very stylish too, if I remember correctly. You've just reminded me to check it again.
shareMy problem with it is that it feels messy. There were to many characters to keep up with which made the plot hard to follow.
Plus it wasn't that funny. A satire is meant to be funny but it wasn't at all. I just got bored.
I really wanted to like this movie. I liked all the actors. I actually thought it was set to be a classic with this cast, but I found it way too predictable. finally, at the end when Ned Beatty was trying to shoot down the sub, there were some spontaneous shots. It just lacked the fun of other films of this time. Compare to Animal House.
shareThe people who don't like it are just little bitches. This is a perfectly good film. Even people that I've met who are a part of mainstream society enjoy this film. The critics in these IBDb boards need to get a Kotex and go to bed.
shareThis isn't a particularly bad film, and I have a certain fondness for it (John William's score is great, actually). But sometimes the movie was too desperate, as if it was shrilling proclaiming, "This is FUNNY! You must LAUGH!" Whenever a movie does that, the last thing I'm going to do is laugh. Sounds like I'm not the only one who felt that way.
shareIt was on last night here. I agree, far from a bad film but a curate's egg to watch. I really like the get in the back of the tank gag though ;O)
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
Stretch tried to rape Betty and Wally went to save her. That's not the kind of scene to be included in a comedy.
Another thing is that the "foggy" cinematography in this film made this film look very depressing.
The climax of, Dennis, Tree, Kelso vs. the Japanese sub was also very confusing and pretty boring, too. We can't even tell who won or lost.
It appears that most of these critics are parroting what real film critics says.
shareI gave this flick 45 minutes, WAITING for it to get better. It just wasn't funny.
Belushi chasing the plane, shooting into the air? He LOOKED like HE couldn't believe he was doing it.
And every scene was just, that, contrived.
Zemeckis, Gale and Milius ARE good at what they do. But, trying to write for that crowd, back then, they missed the target.