best movie i've ever seen.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi romp. Balanced dose of wonder, humor and action. Nice to see some images on older film stock and hear a slightly bombastic score, with the sci-fi parts of the score sounding just like you would expect from something made in yesteryear.The time-travel logic has been elegantly wound up with minimal loose ends. Logic can evade us often with time travel. Even though this story has been very satisfying, it would be interesting to see the same story but with the butterfly effect in play after the Japanese fleet gets hammered instead.Can't complain though. Lots of fun.

And better.That said, anything with Martin Sheen is worth watching. He's even brilliant in his small yet key role in THE DEAD ZONE. And of course he's brilliant as Pres. Jed Bartlett throughout the entire run of THE WEST WING.As for THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, it's basically two TZ episodes -- "The Odyssey of Flight 33" and "Back There" -- mashed together ... with a WW II spin.Skip TFC and check out TZ. TFC is okay, but Rod Serling was a one-in-a-million genius.

In the 1980 Worst of Episode, Gene Siskel said that the Final Countdown suffered from the idiotic plot. Now you could consider the plot to be ridiculous, but I personally don't think the plot is idiotic in any way; in fact the plot is quite interesting.Although the Final Countdown is not a particularly great movie, it is entertaining and interesting. The whole idea of trying to stop a historical event (in this case the bombing of pearl harbor) is something that has been done in fiction before. But it's always interested me. What if you had to opportunity to stop a great disaster, would you?The cast is great. You got Kirk Douglas as the gruff Captain, Martin Sheen as the Skipper whose the most intelligent member of the crew, James Farentino as the Wing Commander, Ron O'Neal as the other commander, Katherine Ross as a woman from 1945 who doesn't serve any real purpose until the end and seems to be their just so they can have a female in the film, Charles Durning as a senator from 1945 whose very important to the plot of the film. Lloyd Kaufman (who was an associate producer, back when he was still involved with mainstream films) also makes an unrecognizable appearance as a member of the crew. His character being named Kaufman in the credits was obviously intentional. He didn't really stand out though, so I didn't notice him on first viewing.The music by John Scott is great too. It gives me a heroic / war feel.The time vortex scene is cool, even if it does feel somewhat outdated by today's standards.Course this being a time travel film, means there are plot holes, but I was able to enjoy the film regardless. It's somewhat silly, but it's entertaining.Plus it's a better Pearl Harbor movie than Pearl Harbor was.

Fun movie. But I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone else comment about the major time travel paradox flaw. In the first minutes of the movie, we see a mysterious figure in the back of the limo, who we hear designed the carrier. In the last moments of the movie, after the Nimitz has returned from 1941, Martin Sheen enters the limo to meet said mysterious passenger, and who is it but Cmd Owens from 1980 who got stuck back in 1941 -- now 40 years older! And rich from designing the carrier. Slight problem -- the now-80 year old Cmd Owens/Mr. Tideman could not have been in the limo at the beginning of the movie, because the Nimitz had not yet gone back in time to leave him in 1941. The writers of Final Countdown would have been well-served by waiting 5 years to make this movie so they could have learned a little from the Back to the Future story writing…..