Movie review: ‘The Final Countdown’

FloridaGator80

Time travel offers an infinite variety of plots and subplots in films. Some of it is good; some of the efforts just stink. One that doesn’t stink and has an interesting premise is “The Final Countdown.” In a nice mix of military/war and sci-fi, the story is about a modern-day aircraft carrier (well, at least modern as of 1980) that finds itself and its crew transported back to Pearl Harbor on Dec. 6, 1941. I’d say “The Final Countdown” reflects a pretty good job all around because competent supporting actors in a fast-moving story make for an enjoyable movie. So, check it out when it arrives on your movie grid. Even if you don’t like war films, you’ll enjoy this one.

‘The Final Countdown’
(1980; 103 minutes; rated PG; directed by Don Taylor and starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen and Katharine Ross)

SHOULD THEY PREVENT PEARL HARBOR OR NOT?

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia, correcting the spelling of a well-known supporting actor’s name and the updating of links on July 22, 2018. I again expanded the review on Feb. 20, 2021.)

Films such as “The Final Countdown” don’t usually delve into time travel philosophy as much, say, as did the characters on the TV sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.” But, the cast does in “The Final Countdown” and it’s an excellent scene as they discuss the possible outcomes of tampering with the past.

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While not doing intentional time travel, such as in “Time After Time” (click here for my review) or “Back to the Future” or “The Time Machine,” “The Final Countdown” sends a U.S. warship unknowingly back in history: to the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The cast is solid, especially Charles Durning and James Farentino; the pace brisk and seamless from one scene and one subplot to the next; and the only real leap of faith for the viewer (other than time travel, of course) is how fast the senior naval officers get on board (pun intended) with the idea that they’ve been transported back in time.

Kirk Douglas stars as “Capt. Matthew Yelland,” the commander off the USS Nimitz, a modern-day aircraft carrier headed to maneuvers with Martin Sheen, playing “Warren Lasky,” who is to observe carrier operations for his mysterious boss who is the industrialist responsible for building the ship.

While on maneuvers (shot in the Atlantic, not the Pacific as the film would have you believe) the ship goes into a strange storm and is transported back in time. Of course, the ship now has no contact with its home base and it’s communications equipment only picks up AM radio broadcasts of Jack Benny and news reports about the German offensive on the Russian front. Uh, oh. You’re not in 1980 anymore, Toto.

In the course of the adventure, they pick up a U.S. senator and his aide and a Japanese pilot (shot down in his Zero by modern jet fighters). All of them are in for eye-opening surprises at every turn. The film does a competent job of showing how people in 1941 would react to modern technology.

I won’t spoil the ending because there is an excellent twist to the story and while you should see it coming, it is done really well.

On the acting front,

  • A three-time Oscar nominee (not for this one), Douglas, who of course is best remembered for his title role in “Spartacus,” does a very energetic turn here and conveys the power of command very well. “The Final Countdown” might not be at the top of this Hollywood legend’s resume, but he doesn’t embarrass himself. Douglas was also in “Paths of Glory” to funny (even if you don’t remember it) in the bad buddy film “Tough Guys” with fellow legend Burt Lancaster (click here for my review). He also did “The War Wagon,” “The Fury” and “The Heroes of Telemark” and was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1996. His nominations were for “Champion” in 1949 and that was followed in the 1950s with “The Bad and the Beautiful” and “Lust for Life.” Douglas died at 103 in 2020.
  • A Golden Globe winner and seven-time nominee (not for this one), Sheen was just coming off his tour de force in “Apocalypse Now” when he did “The Final Countdown.” Sheen is at his smooth best here and brings his usual energy to the part. After that, there’s not much to report about his effort. Sheen won (and got four nominations) for TV’s “The West Wing.” He also did great work in Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” (click here for my review) and was terrific in a guest spot on TV’s “Two and Half Men” – and that was before the show was ruined by bringing in the talentless hack named Ashton Kutcher.
  • A two-time Oscar nominee (not for this one), Durning, who plays rescued “U.S. Sen. Samuel Chapman,” was at his blustery best as the confused and outraged politician who doesn’t understand anything about what’s going on. Durning was nominated for Oscars in back-to-back years with “To Be or Not to Be” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and had notched a total of 207 roles from 1953 until his death in 2012 at 89. He also played opposite Douglas in “Tough Guys.” He also played the stressed-out, high-strung, Pepto-chugging assistant coach in “North Dallas Forty” (click here for my review) and was in the wretched effort called “The Choirboys” (click here for my review).
  • An Oscar nominee (not for this one), Katharine Ross plays the love interest as “Laurel Scott,” the senator’s aide. Unfortunately, the talented actor doesn’t bring much to the role and a different casting choice would have helped. Ross, who was nominated for an Oscar from her role in “The Graduate” (click here for my review) and was Paul Newman’s love interest in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Other of her films include “The Stepford Wives” and a less-than-good potboiler called “The Betsy.”

Elsewhere in the cast …

  • Ron “Super Fly” O’Neal does a solid like job as “Cmdr. Dan Thurman,” the ship’s second-in-command who has to remind Douglas that they are on a warship at a time (even when sent back to 1941) the U.S. would come under attack. I would definitely enjoy seeing more of O’Neal in this one. Filmmakers missed an opportunity with this actor by not expanding the character’s screen time. I also liked O’Neal in the original “Red Dawn” from 1984 (click here for my review). He died at 66 in 2004 of pancreatic cancer.
  • A Golden Globe nominee (not for this one), James Farentino, who plays “Cmdr. Richard Owens,” has the most complicated role. He’s the carrier’s flight leader as well as being a historian writing a book about Pearl Harbor (no kidding). Farentino, who had a TV-heavy resume along with “Her Alibi,” “Ensign Pulver” and “Dead and Buried,” gives a solid performance and is part of the mysterious twist to the plot. He won his Globe in 1967 for “Most Promising Newcomer” in “The Pad and How to Use It.” Farentino passed at 73 in 2012 of heart failure.
  • Finally, Soon-Tek Oh, who is listed in the credits as Soon-Teck Oh, plays the downed Japanese pilot “Simura” who is brought aboard the carrier. It’s a short-lived role, but he does a solid job with such a small part. He has a resume that includes extensive work on TV from “Hawaii Five-O” to “Charlie’s Angels” to “M*A*S*H” and “Magnum P.I.” He also was in films such as 007’s “The Man with the Golden Gun” (click here for my review), “Red Sun Rising” and “Beverly Hills Ninja.” He died in 2018 at 85 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

Interestingly enough, in the plot of “The Final Countdown,” Durning’s character “U.S. Sen. Samuel Chapman,” is told that history shows he disappears on Pearl Harbor day after predicting the attack. In real life, there was a U.S. Rep. Samuel Chapman Massingale who died in 1941 (but not mysteriously near Pearl Harbor … the real man died of influenza – click here for more).

One of my pet peeves is seeing the mistakes in the closed captioning of a film.

In the Netflix closed captioning of “The Final Countdown,” they keep referring to Farentino’s character as “Kag.” They actually meant the acronym “CAG” for the commander of the “carrier air group” on the Nimitz (such officers on carriers are called “Cag” by the fliers they command and higher-ranking officers). Hollywood isn’t good with these things and I recall a TV miniseries called “Brotherhood of the Rose” had a company whose name pronounced “par-duh-gim” by an actor. Right. The name was “Paradigm” and they blissfully mispronounced it. You can click here to see all my posts about closed captioning mistakes …

“The Final Countdown” was the 42nd ranked film at the box office for 1980 with $16.64 million on a budget of $12 million – right behind Burt Reynolds’ largely forgotten but excellent effort called “Rough Cut” – click here for my review, according to Box Office Mojo. I don’t have to remind you that the No. 1 film of the year was “Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back” with more than $206 million. Here are the other films from 1980 that I’ve reviewed:

Other cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Peter Douglas, a son of headliner Kirk Douglas, is the film’s producer and has a small part as the “Quartermaster” in “The Final Countdown” as one of his only two acting roles in film (the other was 22 years earlier in an uncredited bit part of his father’s film “The Vikings”). Peter Douglas was also producer on “Fletch” (click here for my review) and its sequel as well as the recent “Whip It” with the simply terrific Ellen Page and first-time director Drew Barrymore (click here for my review).
  • Douglas’ birth name was Issur Herschelevitch Danielovitch.
  • No CGI special effects here! Aerial sequences had to have the jets fly near stall speed so that the piston-engined aircraft could be filmed in the same frame.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “Filmed in the Atlantic, not the Pacific Ocean (where it takes place). The USS Nimitz was an Atlantic fleet ship until the summer of 1987 when it was transferred to the Pacific. USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) stood in for the Nimitz for the arrival past the ‘Arizona’ into Pearl Harbor.”
  • The U.S. military used the film as a recruiting promotion and the movie poster was displayed in some recruiting offices.
  • The film’s director, Don Taylor, previously directed “Escape from the Planet of the Apes” and it involves time travel.
  • Although he plays a Japanese pilot, Oh was of Korean descent.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “In the mid-1980s the communist government banned the movie in Hungary, claiming it glorified the United States Armed Forces. However, some illegal copies were circulated on VHS with parts about the Russian trawler spying on the USS Nimitz edited out.”

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Published by FloridaGator80

2 Comments

  1. Another excellent review. I like the bits of trivia in there. I remember seeing this movie on HBO I think back when I was kid in the 80s. It was so cool. I gotta find a copy of this somewhere.

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  2. I have this same poster in landscape form framed. One of my favorite movies. The pilots had just gotten their F-14 Tomcats just before the movie was made. It’s said a carrier deck is the most dangerous place to work, and the movie brings this out. Katherine Ross wasn’t very friendly to the pilots and crew. Charles Durning, a WWII vet, was very friendly, as you might expect. Get the blue-ray DVD. That’s where this info came from. The movies great score is available, too. I think the Nimitz is still in service.

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