Originally Posted by Turnbull
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980)

Every schoolboy has a fantasy of going back in time and using modern American military force to subdue those pesky enemies that bedeviled our country in decades (or centuries) past. This is the (almost) adult version:

The supercarrier Nimitz, sailing off of Hawaii, gets caught in an unusually powerful storm that turns out to be a time warp. Captain Matt Yelland (Kirk Douglas) and his officers can't figure out why they aren't able to contact HQ or other Navy ships. They monitor low-band radio broadcasts and send out recon aircraft---and discover that they've been plopped down off Pearl Harbor on Dec.6, 1941. Now Yelland thinks he has an opportunity to reverse history--or does he? In keeping with the general silliness of this film, the cast (which includes Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, Ron O'neill, James Farentino and Charles Durning) aren't trying very hard. But, the producer evidently got a lot of cooperation from the Navy, and there's lots of good Naval Ops footage and equipment close-ups. If you like that sort of thing (I do), watch it once. If not, skip it.


I saw it years ago TB. I had never heard of it before but it's one of my best friends movies so we watched it along with his kids and I remember enjoying it. Haven't seen it since and I remember never hearing of this film prior, but it was good.