Out for the Count

Though I've long been aware of the basic plot of The Final Countdown, I'd never actually seen the movie until this week. It's the story of a modern-day (at the time -- I'll come back to that) aircraft carrier being transported back in time to the day before the Pearl Harbor invasion, faced with the dilemma of whether to use their advanced technology and foreknowledge to alter the course of history. I'd heard middling reviews of the film overall, but I seemed to recall one of my friends thinking highly of it, and I'm also a fan of co-star Martin Sheen. (The other co-star, Kirk Douglas, is alright by me too.) I decided to take the plunge.

Right away, I was struck by a whole "meta" level going on in this film that was never intended or anticipated by its filmmakers. The movie was made in 1980 -- just 39 years after the Pearl Harbor attack. It's now 30 years on past that, so present day is getting to be pretty damn close to the gap these characters had on the history their supposed to be revisiting. The technology looks somewhat dated (though perhaps not as much as you might expect), and the well-known actors look amazingly young compared to how we know them today. Basically, there's a level at which you're imagining the scenario of a modern naval ship heading back to 1980 (though there wasn't a World War to be fighting at the time).

Trying to set that aside, the movie does have a decent opening act. The journey back of the carrier and crew, and their gradual discovery and acceptance of where and when they've been transported, does make for some good tension. It's not suspenseful as such, since the synopsis of the film puts the audience ahead of the characters for a long while. But there is still some tension, because you do feel it's going to be interesting to see what they do.

But that's when things start to slide downhill, because unfortunately, they don't do much of anything. The writers had a lot of directions they could take this story. They could explore the creation of an alternate history. They could tell the story of a mutiny among the crew, or at least of a major dispute between the captain of the carrier (Douglas) and the government observer sent to critique the crew (Sheen).

Instead, they take the least interesting road: not interfering with anything. With each passing scene, you get more of a growing sense that this film is going to take the cowardly way out and not get into any real fiction, and so with each passing scene, it gets a bit less interesting. The carrier never takes any decisive action that could cause major changes to history. The minor changes they affect are undone in the course of the film. And then, right at the climax, when it seems they're about to go for broke, the anomaly reappears to whisk them back to the future before anything goes wrong. (And the captain, moments earlier apparently committed to attacking the Japanese, instead basically gives up, recalls his planes, and surrenders to it.)

Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen do continue to inject some interest throughout, but it's by sheer force of talent. The script is far more concerned with portraying something close to accurate conduct aboard a naval ship (complete with the jargon appropriate to the setting) than in building the characters much in any dramatic scenes. And the characters almost have to stay this thin for you to accept them essentially doing nothing important by the time the final credits roll.

In spite of a sort of epilogue you can see coming a mile away, the movie essentially winds up saying "it never happened." And that's a shame, because the premise really is interesting, some good actors were in place, and there was a good build of drama in the first half hour or so. I feel if they'd truly committed to telling a "what if?" story, it could have been something pretty great. As it is, I just call it a C+.