Review: 'JImmy' recounts Jimmy Stewart's wartime exploits, with all the corniness of one of the actor's old movies.

The biographical drama “Jimmy” treats the life of the legendary actor Jimmy Stewart much the way Stewart-starring biopics like “The Glenn Miller Story” and “The Spirit of St. Louis” did — a mix of treacle and grandiosity that may have worked decades ago but feel as dated as the public-domain needle drops.

Director Aaron Burns focuses on Stewart’s life in the 1940s, as the callow young actor (played with aplomb by KJ Apa) has just won his Academy Award for “The Philadelphia Story” and is semi-seriously romancing one of Hollywood’s leading actresses, Ginger Rogers (Jemma Donovan). Back home in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Jimmy’s father (Neal McDonough), is less impressed with Jimmy’s Oscar than with the local boy who just signed up for the Army — a more noble pursuit than acting, in Dad’s mind.

When Stewart’s number gets called in the draft, the head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer (Jason Alexander), offers to arrange for his actor to avoid service, until the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Sarah Drew) gets wind of it and prompts a publicity nightmare. Stewart enlists in the Army Air Corps, intent on seeing combat in Europe, even though his commander (Rob Riggle) would prefer a stateside assignment because “America can’t afford to lose Jimmy Stewart.”

Undaunted, Stewart heads to Tibenham Air Base in England, and Justin Strawhand’s script focuses largely on his military service — which culminated in 20 bombing missions over Nazi Germany, some of which are reenacted with gritty authenticity. Less realistic is a fabricated romance with a widowed English aristocrat, Lady Julia Tyndall (Kara Killmer) who sees the shell shock and imposter syndrome Jimmy is suffering, the guilt over using his acting talents to convince other young men to go into war.

Framing Jimmy’s World War II heroics and survivor’s guilt is the story of what happened when the war was over. Mayer tells him his fame has diminished, and it’s only a long shot script from his director pal Frank Capra (Max Casella) that might resurrect his career — a feel-bad holiday drama about a small-town banker coping with financial setbacks, a movie called “It’s a Wonderful Life!”

Burns and Strawhand serve up Stewart’s story with enough corn to make tortillas, and Apa’s earnest performance relies too heavily on nailing Stewart’s famously aw-shucks vocalisms and aping his onscreen mannerisms. The production is rich in period splendor, but it all feels like a big game of dress-up. “Jimmy” gets the surface details of Stewart’s story, but not the spirit he displayed in his films.

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‘Jimmy’

★★

Opens Friday, November 6, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for some war violence/bloody images, thematic elements and smoking. Running time: 120 minutes.