Capt. Matthew Yelland (Kirk Douglas) is in command of the American nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen) is on a special assignment from the DOD. He has a mysterious benefactor Richard Tideman who helped design the ship. They go out to sea and is caught in an unusual storm that sends them back in time to right before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Laurel Scott (Katharine Ross) is the assistant to Senator Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning). They are on a yacht attacked by the Japanese. Cdr. Owens (James Farentino) is the lead jet pilot.

There is some great footage of an aircraft carrier and real fighters. This is most notable for all the real work considering this is pre-CGI. Everything is in camera. It's probably the only time that jet fighters get into a dogfight with propeller fighters on screen. When the music comes up, it's all done with so much energy. There is some drawback with using the regular crew as extras and Farentino isn't the most charismatic actor. I do like that they have a discussion about time travel. This is probably the second best real fighter planes movie after 'Top Gun'.

Only a Timelord might know the answer to that and The Final Countdown bears no small resemblance to a big budget version of a Doctor Who episode. All that was needed was the TARDIS and one of the Doctors Who to provide an explanation for what was going on.

Kirk Douglas heads the cast in his own Bryna films production of The Final Countdown. He's the captain of the U.S.S Nimitz, finest nuclear powered aircraft carrier in the fleet and on this cruise they've got a VIP aboard, Martin Sheen who works for a mysterious Howard Hughes hermit like defense contractor named Tideman.

Once out of port they encounter a storm unlike any other in history and though they're slow to comprehend it, the U.S.S. Nimitz and crew are transported back in time, precisely to December 6, 1941.

What to do? The mind boggles with the possibilities. Complicating things even further the Nimitz rescues United States Senator Charles Durning and his girl Friday Katharine Ross who are the only survivors of a cabin cruiser that got shot up by Japanese planes. Oh. and they also rescue the pilot of one of the Japanese zeroes that sunk the cabin cruiser, Soon Teck Oh.

The Final Countdown is a good science fiction film that raises some interesting conundrum like questions. Would you kill Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin as a child if you got the chance? Should the Nimitz with the firepower it has go wreak some havoc on the Japanese fleet before they strike?

Other good performances in the film besides those mentioned are James Farentino as the air group commander and amateur historian and Ron O'Neal as the Executive officer of the Nimitz. My favorite in the film however is Soon Teck Oh. He speaks only Japanese in the film and he manages to invoke both menace and fright in his performance of a man, also not knowing what's happening but knowing he's with the American enemy.

You'll be scratching your head for days after seeing The Final Countdown. I won't say what happens to the Nimitz and its crew, but Martin Sheen gets the biggest surprise of all at the very end of the film.

Intelligent science fiction films have a tendency to be few and far between - which is why it's refreshing to watch this thought-provoking time-slip drama which sees a naval warship from the '80s transported back in time to the day before the attack on Pearl Harbour! The film's conception was clearly inspired by one of my favourite movies - the Japanese classic G.I. SAMURAI, with Sonny Chiba and his troops transported back to samurai times. I was looking forward to see what this US-centric twist would add to the story, and I wasn't disappointed.

For a start, this isn't an action film. Aside from plenty of scenes of planes flying around and landing on the ship (via some cool elastic technology),this shows no battle scenes, so if you're looking for that kind of excitement I'd recommend going elsewhere. The crux of the film is the captain's moral dilemma as he has to choose whether to become involved in WW2 or not. Any action he takes is likely to have drastic consequences - leading to a nail-biting climax that poses the question "what if?". For some, this might be anticlimatic, and if you're looking for a pure modern-vs-historical war movie I'd go with G.I. SAMURAI instead.

The cast is pretty good, a mix of star names and character actors. Douglas is one of those old-time guys who seems great in any part, and I couldn't fault him here. Martin Sheen has something of an extraneous role, given that he doesn't actually do anything other than act as the audience's eyes and ears. James Farentino and Katharine Ross supply a low-key love affair and Charles Durning has fun as a ranting politician. I also enjoyed Soon-Tek Oh who appeared briefly as a menacing Japanese pilot - the stand-off involving his character is the film's best scene. Sure, this isn't the most exciting film in the world, and in terms of spectacle the special effects have dated somewhat. But I found it original and unpredictable, a fine addition to the spate of time-travel-paradox movies that never panders to the booms-n-bangs crowd.