Time Traveler

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Directed by Don Taylor; Screenplay by

David Ambrose and Gerry Davis,

Thomas Hunter and Peter Powell

Strange doings aboard the U.S.S. Nimitz! The great carrier puts out to sea from Pearl Harbor on a routine exercise, only to encounter this really nasty bit of weather. The old salts have never seen such lightning before, or heard such a strange roar from the ocean. The disturbance does not even register on the radar screen.

This, apparently, is what a time warp looks like if you happen to come across it in the middle of the Pacific. When the ship finally emerges from the relativistic tunnel, the date is Dec. 6, 1941--Pearl Harbor eve. Once the captain (Kirk Douglas) and his mates on the bridge (Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Ron O'Neal, et al.) get the mystery all sorted out, the Nimitz, in its full nuclear glory, finds itself in a position to intervene in history. Should it try to face down the entire Japanese armada steaming toward its rendezvous with infamy?

On the surface, the answer seems simple: think of the lives that might have been saved if the attack on Pearl could have been averted. But against that certainty, those with the decisive force at their command must weigh the force of the unknown. It is entirely possible that World War II might have been still bloodier had the U.S. not been drawn into the fight by the Japanese assault. To this dilemma The Final Countdown makes a sensible, existentialist response. It is also fully aware of the ironies--the sheer comic puzzlement--implicit in a confrontation between a modern ship of the line and antiques that are a mere four decades old.

Brilliantly shot and edited documentary passages from the carrier itself provide an awesome display of its destructive capacity--and of the discipline under which it is held in peacetime. On that level, the film is as impressive a statement about the value and values of professional fighting men as one could hope to find in these cynical days. This realism also lends credibility to the fantastic tale unfolding aboard the mighty ship. In fact, at a time when movies are increasingly preoccupied with the inexplicable and supernatural, The Final Countdown is one of the few films in this juvenile vein that are adult, intelligent and entertaining. --By Richard Schickel

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