The sighting of a stray Japanese submarine off the California coast ignites a slapstick panic which might more revealingly have been titled The Japs Are Coming, The Japs Are Coming. Steven Spielberg must have figured that if Stanley Kramer could resuscitate slapstick comedy (cf. It'a a Mad, Mad [etc.] World), then so anyone could. But he is so preoccupied with spendthrift period re-creation, intricate scene construction, and elaborate feats of engineering (including an admittedly exciting aerial dogfight above Hollywood Boulevard and an admittedly spectacular shot of a ferris wheel loosened from its moorings and rolling down Santa Monica Pier) that he gums up the joke machinery. There are a lot of slam-bang chain-reaction jokes, a lot of dirty double-entendres, and a lot of movie in-jokes. None of them is the slightest bit amusing, with the single exception of Robert Stack's show of emotion as he watches Walt Disney's Dumbo. With Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Ned Beatty, and Toshiro Mifune. (1979) — Duncan Shepherd
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