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Title: Pretty watchable for a bad movie
Review: "1941" is a complete mess with a whole lot of unfunny forced jokes and an awful screenplay (by Robert Zemeckis and John Milus). It's clear that Spielberg is a talented filmmaker who doesn't quite have the knack for choosing good scripts. While nearly everything he did before this was gold (including "Duel" and "The Sugarland Express")... he was obviously at a loss for how to handle a slapstick comedy. That said, his talent does shine through in a lot of scenes. There's a pretty fun dance number, the special effects for the plane chase through Hollywood haven't dated a bit, and how can anyone resist a movie that pairs up Toshiro Mifune and Christopher Lee? Maybe the casting of Mifune wasn't such a good choice, because I couldn't root against him, even while he was plotting to blow up Hollywood. I just couldn't!
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