Rage (1972)

One of the beauties of Turner Classic Movie's summer programming is August's Summer Under the Stars, each day devoted to one star's films. I was able to check out several from George C. Scott that I'd never seen before, including this 1972 timely drama that you can see appealing to all sorts of audiences upset with the government, politics, and the System as a whole. Here we are with 1972's Rage.

Dan Logan (Scott) is a small-time rancher who lives in Wyoming with his 12-year old son, Chris (Nicolas Beauvy). Dan's wife died years before, leaving him to raise his son alone, something he takes to heart and very seriously. They've got a good life on the Logan spread, just father and son making a living. One night they're out camping on a hillside when Dan wakes up to find Chris unresponsive and bleeding profusely from the nose. He races into town to the hospital and Chris is immediately taken away from him. Doctors aren't sure exactly what happened, but one doctor especially, Holliford (Martin Sheen), assures him that everything will be taken care of. Dan too is asked to stay for observation, just to see if anything has happened to him too. What's going on? What Dan doesn't know is that a local army base is covering up an accident with a nerve gas accidentally being released...

Here's a trivia question for you. With what film did actor George C. Scott make his directorial debut? You're looking at it. That would be 1972's Rage. It's an interesting debut for the longtime actor. It's timely. It's hard-hitting, cynical, violent (horrifically at times), intensely uncomfortable so yeah, basically made for an early 1970's audience fed up with any sort of establishment. While it doesn't get too heavy in getting it across, it's safe to say 'Rage' is a "message" film. It wants to get a message across and make the audience get down to basics and think about what the story is really saying. The nerve gas reveal in the above plot line is a relative spoiler. You find out pretty quickly actually what's going on. The point is, it's the start of something. It's what the nerve gas represents.

That being...anyone trying to keep things under wraps from you because as a people, we're too stupid to handle something dangerous. Whether you agree with that is up to you. 'Rage' is a movie for those folks fed up with information being withheld from them, of someone in power dancing around the truth, of that person treading the fine line between the truth and a flat-out lie "for your benefit." Your establishment a-holes? Sheen plays an army doctor working undercover of sorts who really knows what's going on. Richard Basehart is Logan's longtime doctor and friend, quickly realizing the truth as he puts the clues together. Also look for Kenneth Tobey, Paul Stevens, Barnard Hughes, Ed Lauter and others trying to keep things under wraps.

Whether it be from behind the director's chair or in front of the camera, this is Scott's movie. His single father and small-time rancher character is about as archetypal American as you can get. He's created a life and carved it out of the landscape for himself and his son. He'll do anything to protect it. While there are some familiar Scott outbursts, I liked the Logan character most in the quiet moments. Dan is looking out for his son, pleased he sees his boy picking things up quickly as he grows up. We see a lot of this in an extended montage through the movie's first 15 minutes as Dan and Chris interact all over the ranch, ultimately ending up playing checkers while camping next to a small fire.

Also look for Dabbs Greer and John Dierkes in small supporting parts.

I was both intrigued and struggled with the slow pacing here in Scott's feature film directorial debut. The first hour is intensely slow as we begin to realize how bad the situation is, how dangerous the nerve gas really is, and the depths the army/establishment will go to keep that news under wraps. It is about the hour-mark when Logan puts it all together and FREAKING LASHES OUT. We're talking Death Wish meets Falling Down with any other vigilante movie you want to mention thrown in for good measure. He becomes a man possessed to right a wrong done against him. I kinda figured where the story was going, but not to these depths. It is dark. It is uncomfortable, and that's no doubt what Scott set out to do. Life ain't easy, especially when the powers that be have rooted interests in something not getting out.

The ending itself is tough to watch. It's supposed to be. As far as it goes, I wish it would have gone a little further. From the word 'go' we know this won't be a happy ending, but some more revenge and vengeance being dished out would have been so much better. So many more needed to be punished for their actions. Man, I'm getting all sorts of Old Testament here, but it's true. The actual finale is heartbreaking because it doesn't feel forced. There aren't any easy answers so my complaints of wanting more revenge being doled out go unanswered. That's life. It's tough. A depressing movie, flawed at times but interesting throughout.

Rage (1972): ***/****

Eagle's Wing

Keep on looking, and eventually you'll continue to find movies you've absolutely heard nothing about that still appeal to you. Now if I could just win that dang lotto, I could spend all my time looking for hidden gems like that. Here's a good example. Cool cast, genre I love, interesting premise. What's the final verdict on 1979's Eagle's Wing?

It's in the 1830s in the wild expanses of the New Mexico desert. An inexperienced frontiersman and former soldier, Pike (Martin Sheen), is on his own after his partner is killed during a run-in with an Indian war party. Riding across the desert looking for what's next, Pike stumbles across a Comanche burial, a beautiful white stallion picketed nearby. Pike manages to escape with the horse, but he's not the only one interested in the horse. A Kiowa warrior, White Bull (Sam Waterston), has also seen the horse and wants it more than anything else, a run-in on the trail more than likely with such a prize on the line. That's not all though. A stagecoach and burial hearse loaded with gold and jewelry, not to mention a small group of beautiful women, is traveling across the desert at the same time. What will happen when these disparate individuals all meet up?

So ever heard of this one? Yeah, me neither. From director Anthony Harvey, 'Wing' is considered a Euro-western (I guess) as it was backed by an English studio and filmed on-location in Durango, Mexico. It received decent film reviews back in 1979 but struggled to find a footing in theaters. And wow, what a mixed bag in the end. Purely on a visual level, this flick is a stunner. You get a sense of how big the desert is, how immense the wilderness truly was when Indian tribes ruled the west and a few brave mountain men, traders and trappers navigated the country. A gorgeous film to watch, but does it rise to something else? Something more?

My biggest criticism is that 'Wing' isn't content to just be a western story with some interesting characters in an interesting historical time that doesn't always get its due in film. It has to be something more, like an allegory about human wants, needs and what drives them. Yes, it is an immaculate white stallion with impeccable speed on the line. It becomes more though. How far will these individuals go? Waterston's White Bull begins to abandon everything else he owns to keep the horse. Sheen's Pike risks bleeding to death with a wound rather than risk losing the horse. Members of a posse trailing them all turn to greed, murder and backstabbing. Maybe the premise would work better if handled a little differently, but the story never quite develops how I'd like. The second half of the movie (I saw a version about 105 minutes) is significantly better, but the finale disappoints too, open-ended without any real closure. So it's got that going for it!

And then there's the casting, some interesting, some good, and some just odd. First of all, Sam Waterston as an Indian warrior? It's not that this is a bad performance -- he doesn't speak much -- but seriously....Law and Order's resident district attorney Mr. McCoy as an 1830s Kiowa warrior? Tsk tsk, that's not ideal casting. For such a wily trailsman, White Bull also seems to make some insanely dumb decisions along the way. Sheen escapes with less damage, at times channeling his dream-like voiceover from Apocalypse Now, as the frontiersman quickly learning how to survive. Also worth mentioning? Harvey Keitel is around for about 30 minutes as Henry, a far-more experienced trader and frontiersman trying to teach Pike the ways of the wilderness.

Other characters include Judith (Caroline Langrishe), an Irish woman kidnapped by White Bull, a widowed woman (Stephane Audran) with the desert hearse, the two most persistent members of the pursuing posse (Jorge Russek and Manuel Ojeda), and Judith's brother, the Priest (John Castle). 

An interesting movie for sure. As I mentioned, the second half is significantly better with the pace quickening and the chase coming to its sorta conclusion. The premise is excellent, a handful of individuals with limited weapons and fewer supplies all pursuing each other, all for different reasons. I wish I liked it more, but as is, it's a decent western with some big positives and hard to avoid negatives.

Eagle's Wing (1979): ** 1/2 /****

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Everyone has seen Armageddon, right? No? Shame on you. Everyone should see it, but here's the gist. What if Bruce Willis and his motley crew didn't destroy a world-ending asteroid on a collision course with Earth? Those left behind would be limited to a few days of survival before the asteroid ultimately struck the planet. An interesting premise for sure brought to life in 2012's Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

A 70-mile wide asteroid named Matilda is hurtling toward Earth, and now that a NASA mission (think the one in Armageddon I'd assume) has failed, it is only a matter of time before the asteroid impacts and destroys the planet. Matilda is still several weeks away from impact, leaving the population of Earth a limited time to come to terms with their coming doom. Dodge (Steve Carell) is one of those people, struggling to cope with what's coming, more so when his wife jumps out of their car and runs away. People are looking for answers, for happiness, but Dodge doesn't know what he wants.....and then it clicks. He wants to go find his long lost teenage love and see her once more. Along for the ride is his neighbor, Penny (Kiera Knightley), fresh off a breakup. They hit the road as the asteroid plummets closer and closer.

More than anything else, it was the premise/story that caught my attention here. This isn't one person who knows they're going to die in a set amount of time. This is the entire planet. Everyone. No one is going to survive this world-ending asteroid. How then do you think you would react in that situation? If you knew you only had a few weeks to live -- as does everyone else -- what would you do? Director Lorene Scafaria's film delves into that topic with varying degrees of success. It is neither a comedy or a drama, but instead, it's somewhere in that messy ground in between. My biggest issue is that the tone changes with the wind. One scene, it's trying to be a comedy, but the next scene, here comes the gloom and doom from the drama department.

When it does work, the movie is excellent. There are little snippets in the episodic story that are near perfection. Carell's Dodge goes to a dinner party (seems reasonable, doesn't it?) at the home of his long-time friend (Rob Corddry) and his wife (Connie Britton). Corddry's Warren has adapted a 'Screw 'em all!' mentality, intending to live up his last few weeks. He passes vodka to his kids, encouraging them to chug martinis, jokes that firecrackers are dynamite, but they can't hurt you unless you stand this close. Varieties of hardcore drugs pop up, Patton Oswalt's Roache trying some to check off his bucket list while also trying to get Dodge to get involved in a threesome (or maybe only a two-some...wink). It's these moments that work to perfection. No one is going to react to the end of the world in exactly the same way, and we see a lot of those tendencies. Dodge for one, continues to go to work.

I'll get into the cast more later, but the spotlight is on Carell as Dodge and Knightley as Penny. They're opposites in a lot of ways, but they find a common bond, a link, as the end of the world nears. The story is a quasi-buddy story with a road trip along for the ride so we the coming doom from their eyes. Dodge doesn't see the point in really getting to know someone new because let's face it, they'll all be dead in a few weeks. Penny -- fresh off a breakup with stoner mess-up Adam Brody -- wants to see her family one last time. I like both actors, but I didn't especially care for either character here. Carell seems pegged into this part as a quiet, worrisome guy. It's supposed to be understated, but I wasn't interested. Knightley as the quirky Penny is okay, but she seems to be trying too hard to be quirky, and that's never a good thing. The story starts off at a lightning-pace, funny, smart and dark, but as it progresses (and it's only about 94 minutes without the credits) it loses all the dark humor and is just.....dark.

The episodic story allows for some interesting characters and appearances, none of them around for more than a scene. Corddry especially is a scene-stealer, as is Oswalt in his awkwardness. Along with Britton and Brody, also look for Rob Huebel as Dodge's suicidal co-worker, Tonita Castro as his persistent cleaning lady in a great running bit, Melanie Lynskey as a woman with a crush on Dodge, William Petersen as a helpful truck driver, and Derek Luke as Speck, Penny's ex preparing for the end of the world in military fashion. The best part though goes to Martin Sheen in a quick appearance late as Frank, Dodge's father who he hasn't seen in years. The parts work because they're quick and effective without brow-beating you with a message.

I really liked parts of 'World' and struggled to keep up with the sometimes severely slow pacing in other parts. I loved Mark Moses as a national news broadcaster, providing a face of calm and serenity for viewers as the world is torn apart. We see some react with riots, others in peaceful fashion, embracing what little time they have left. There's no twist or huge surprise in the finale, an ending that works exceptionally well. I just wish more of the movie could have been like that. Still worth a watch, and maybe I'd like it more on a second viewing, but for now it gets a slightly above average review.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012): ** 1/2 /****   

The Amazing Spider-Man

Really? This is what we've come to? Between 2002 and 2007, three different Spiderman movies hit theaters -- all highly successful regardless of quality, I'm looking at you Spiderman 3 -- with Tobey Maguire as the arachnid superhero. Maguire wanted out though, but Hollywood wanted more. So just five years since the last movie and 10 since the start of the franchise, we get a reboot already? Enter 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man.

Living with his aunt and uncle for years after his parents disappeared, nerdy teenager Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has long struggled with who he is and what he should be as he grows up. One day in search of answers about his father, Peter stumbles across some of his paperwork, some of it about cross-breeding DNA brands. He follows the information and meets Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), his father's old partner. It is at Connors' office that Peter is bit on the neck by a genetically mutated spider, and almost immediately he feels the effects. With a power that he can at first barely harness, much less believe, Peter becomes Spiderman. But as his name becomes known, some look to him as a hero, other as a cowardly masked vigilante.

I'll get part of this rant out early. A line in the recent 21 Jump Street rings truer and truer with each new movie. It goes "The people behind this lack creativity and they've run out of ideas, so what they do now is just recycle shit from the past and hope that nobody will notice." Yes, I realize that fans go out to see these movies, but seriously. Is there no original idea at all out there? We're already doing a reboot of a franchise that was started exactly 10 years ago. From director Marc Webb, 'Amazing' tweaks the Spiderman universe back toward the more accurate, but is that enough reasoning to justify starting a franchise over again? We JUST saw Spiderman in 2002 explain how Peter becomes the superhero.Strike while the iron is hot I suppose, but still. Originality is so overrated anyways I suppose.

Onto the actual movie though. The rant wouldn't have been as severe if this movie wasn't....well....dull. With a movie that runs 136 minutes, I was bored and bored quickly. The origin story of a superhero is fine. Seeing that character background is almost always interesting. But here? I never felt like I was brought into the movie. The story has the been-there, done-that quality which is unfortunate because in quick snippets, little glimpses in certain scenes, there is energy and potential for an interesting, worthwhile story. Instead we get a teen angst riddled Peter struggling with being a teenager like something out of an after school special. There are no truly memorable set pieces, nothing that stands out from the rest, and the lack of a great villain certainly handicaps the story even if Ifans is a big positive in the cast. A little on the side, 'Amazing' could have been more memorable with just a little energy.

Through four movies -- three with Maguire and one with Garfield -- I think a key issue is casting Spiderman. What's so hard about it? Christian Bale is an ideal Batman. Robert Downey Jr. the same for Iron Man. Why not Spiderman? Is it the teen aspect? A 28-year old, Garfield certainly looks the part of a somewhat nerdy but highly intelligent high school student. As an actor though, I wasn't impressed. Yes, he's Spiderman. He's cool, but I wasn't interested in the character at all. Garfield uses a series of awkward glances, twitches and flinching to develop(?) the character of Spiderman. Making it worse, when he becomes the superhero, he becomes cocky and spits out one-liners left and right, making a dull character tough to watch on-screen. He is a better choice than Maguire was (just never seemed like an ideal choice), but if there's little interest in the story or him, that's kind of a major problem.

Not surprisingly, some of the supporting parts help make the slow-moving story worthwhile at different points. I'm noticing that more and more in certain superhero movies. Emma Stone is Gwen Stacy, the smart, beautiful and funny teenager that just about every high school boy dreams of dating. Ifans is the best supporting part as Dr. Connors who eventually turns into the Lizard after a specimen reacts in an unforeseen way. A villain who's motives are pure, but how he intends to do it ends up vilifying him. Denis Leary too has some fun as Capt. Stacy, a NYPD officer and Gwen's father who butts heads with Peter. Martin Sheen and Sally Field are underused but make the most of their screentime as Uncle Ben and Aunt May, Peter's long-time guardians who've looked after him since his parents disappeared years earlier.

As 'Amazing' nears the two-hour mark, it is saved to a point by the finale; Spiderman trying to prevent the Lizard's means of creating a 'super race' of men by unleashing a toxin all over New York City. The action up to that point felt repetitious to me, but this final showdown has that energy that so much of the rest of the movie was missing. There's also a small but solid part for C. Thomas Howell in the finale, a link to an earlier scene when he meets Spiderman. As a moderate fan of the original Spiderman movies, I didn't have high expectations for this 2012 reboot. Still, I came away empty. It's not an awful movie, but it never rises above even average unfortunately.

The Amazing Spider Man <---trailer (2012): **/**** 

The Double

As a movie fan, I think one of the biggest joys you can find is stumbling across a new movie that instantly gets your attention. For a lot of us, that means movie trailers and previews. The threat of course is simple....that trailer ruins the entire movie. 'Hey, that looks good!' is quickly followed by 'Wait, did I just see the entire movie?' That's what I took away from the trailer for 2011's The Double.

Having retired from the CIA some 20 years ago, Paul Shepherdson (Richard Gere) is sought out to help solve one more crime, a murder of a U.S. Senator. The killing has links to a former case of Paul's, one that haunted him for years. It is believed the murderer is a believed dead Russian spy, Cassius, who Paul spent years hunting down. He believes he is in fact dead, but still agrees to help a young FBI agent, Ben Geary (Topher Grace), in the investigation. Geary is obsessed with Cassius, even writing a college thesis on him, so combined with Paul's experience and expertise, can they somehow track the deep undercover Russian agent down?

At some point last fall in 2011, I stumbled across the trailer for this straight-to-DVD spy flick. It started off positive enough, and I was mildly intrigued. It looked decent enough, rising above its straight to DVD roots. About halfway through though, a bombshell gets dropped, a rather revealing and key plot twist. It's not a trick or a ruse to confuse you. The trailer "twist" is actually a major turning point in the story, and it appears just as you will see it in the movie. Just a forewarning because I'll post the link below at the end of the review. Buzzkill much? Any mystery or suspense is ripped away from us. To be fair, the movie doesn't wait long to "reveal" the twist. Still, what's the point if everything is spoiled going into the movie?

So yes, the story is pretty dumb, the script not doing anyone any favors. But as is so often the case, the straight to DVD issue is in my head. Sure, some money was clearly spent on the production, but there's that special something missing. It's that one thing that screams "I'm good enough for theaters!" as a movie. The action feels forced, cliched and hokey. The musical score is ridiculous, sounding like someone just picked shuffle on ITunes and took a nap. It doesn't help either that the movie is based in Washington D.C. but not filmed there. We get lots....lots....of establishing shots (the White House, the FBI, the Jefferson Memorial among others), and then the camera clearly moves to a random city, in this case...Detroit. Beyond the predictable script, the little things end up shooting 'Double' in the foot, limiting director Michael Brandt's chances.

Ah, the old grizzled veteran and the young, perky newbie trying to prove himself. Yeah for cliches, stereotypes and stock characters! Richard Gere is an interesting character to watch, but it feels like he's phoning this performance in. He has two looks. One, bemused boredom. He coldly stares at his co-stars, possibly questioning what he's doing in this movie. Two, bemused boredom with some anger thrown in (however little). Some revelations late make the character a little interesting, but not enough. And for Topher Grace, I think That 70s Show is going to be an issue going ahead. I see him as Eric Forman. Playing a FBI agent? Totally not buying that. When scenes require genuine dramatic presence, he sounds ridiculous, screaming in a high-pitched voice that wouldn't scare a toddler. Oh, and in the random department, Martin Sheen cashes a check as Highland, the head of the CIA.

So what else to say? Not much. A second twist in the final act makes a desperate attempt at making things interesting by throwing a curveball, but I wasn't buying it. The twist comes out of left field, and like so much of the movie, it reeks of being forced and jammed into the story for sake of being "clever." I wasn't expecting much out of this spy flick, but I didn't get much out of it either. Steer clear of it. Remember now, don't watch the trailer if you want the movie spoiled for you. SPOILERS

The Double <---SPOILERS trailer (2011): */****

Apocalypse Now

As a fan of movies, there are just certain films you have to see. When you haven't seen those movies, you typically get a reaction something like 'HOW HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THAT? IT'S A CLASSIC!' The reaction can be angrier or happier depending on the individual. I've gotten that reaction concerning 1979's Apocalypse Now. Well, check that one off the list.

Having already served at least one tour in Vietnam, special forces Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) is wasting away in Saigon as he battles through some personal demons. He waits and waits for a mission, and finally gets one, but it's nothing like he expected. Across the Cambodian border, an American officer and Special Forces vet, Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), has gone rogue, and Intelligence things he's gone insane with his adoring command still intact. Willard's mission sounds simple but is anything but. Boarding a small patrol boat with its close-knit crew, Willard travels all the way up a river into Cambodia with one objective; terminate Kurtz with extreme discretion.

While director Francis Ford Coppola's highly controversial and much debated movie is typically grouped as a war movie, it is really anything but. It is based off Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, albeit based in a Vietnam setting. Not to sound pretentious -- the movie does enough of that -- but this movie isn't about war. It's more about the affects of war, how it hits people, how it impacts them. I watched Apocalypse Now Redux, the longer version Coppola released in 2001, and I feel safe saying it is unlike any movie I've ever seen before. Emotional, moving, existential, other-worldly, upsetting. It defies descriptions in so many ways.

The best I can do though is surreal. The Vietnam setting is a jumping off point for the weirdness. At 202 minutes (the Redux), it is a leisurely, slow moving story. It is one of the most incredibly visual movies I've ever seen, haunting in its beauty at times and upsetting at others. Working with his father, a composer himself, Coppola creates a musical score that is both classical and innovative. It uses an electronic synthesizer and lots of percussion, setting an eerie, unsettling mood to this trippy, even psychedelic trip up the river to Kurtz's compound. The feeling and aura of the movie is unreal and hard to put into words. Coppola creates a vision of a war -- Vietnam -- that I can only imagine was more terrifying than the actual war itself.

This is a movie about a journey though, both physically moving up the river and in one's mind, specifically Sheen's Capt. Willard. In a movie that runs three-plus hours, we get to see a lot of these bizarre, surreal moments in the journey. It starts with an opening set to The Doors' The End, and then we're off to the Intelligence community where the mission is explained, and then Willard is to to the Air Cav, a helicopter unit commanded by Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall), more interested in surf conditions than objectives. That's just the start though. We see a disintegrating force of soldiers the further north the boat travels, officers in "command" long since gone. The patrol boat also runs into a USO show with Playboy playmates, the crew later running into them at an isolated Medevac station, and is also captured of sorts by French plantation owners (including Christian Marquand) still in Vietnam from the French occupation years before. The longer the journey, the stranger things get.

Through the good and the bad -- and there's a fair share of both -- are some moments of perfection. Kilgore's Air Cav command assaulting a Viet Cong coastline post is a brilliant sequence, one of the most realistic, intense, adrenaline-pumping action scenes ever. It's set to Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries, the music the attacking helicopters listen to as they fly into battle. Has to be seen to be believed and appreciated. Watch part of it HERE. Another highpoint is the patrol boat reaching the last American post on the river, a bridge under constant construction and under constant attack. Arriving in the dead of night during an attack with lights strung across the river, Willard and the crew find the semblance of what used to be a command in a dream-like, eerily beautiful sequence.

Onto the cast, and there's plenty to talk about there. Sheen nails his part as the tortured Capt. Willard. His narration fills in much of the movie's quieter gaps, treading the line between obnoxious and pretentious with genuinely heartfelt messages. His own descent into madness, his obsession to finish the mission is startling in its own right. Brando doesn't even appear until 150 minutes in, and his performance is almost a caricature of himself. It's all right, but a little much (more on that later). Duvall very much earns his Best Supporting Nod (but didn't win) as Col. Kilgore, infamously stating "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. The patrol boat's crew include Chief (Albert Hall), the no-nonsense commander, Clean (very young Laurence Fishburne), Chef (Frederic Forrest) and zen-like surfer Lance (Sam Bottoms). G.D. Spradlin and Harrison Ford have small parts as Intelligence officers giving Willard his mission. 

As good as parts of the movie can be, it also struggles to hold its momentum until the end. The story drifts along far too much, and by the time Brando's Kurtz actually reveals himself it's almost a disappointment. There is little energy in the build-up to the finale, an incredible ending that has stirred up controversy over the years in all its different variations. Dennis Hopper as a stoned-out photojournalist (Scott Glenn has a small part here as one of Willard's predecessors) and Brando spout off with lots of philosophical musings that mean nothing but sound good. Kurtz delivers one moving monologue about the horrors of war, but it's lost in a sea of drifting, pointless "messages." That's the problem with much of the movie. It wants to say something about war and man, but what exactly? 

Through everything though, this is an incredible movie. Even if you hate it, Apocalypse Now will almost certainly make an impact on you either negative or positive. I watched it two days ago and am still wrapping my head around it. It is unlike any other movie I can think of, and truly needs to be experienced.

Apocalypse Now <---trailer (1979): ***/****

The Final Countdown

A whole sub-genre of history/sci-fi has been devoted to one idea; using variations of time travel, if you could change history, would you? Imagine going back to November 1963 and being in the Dallas Book Depository and stopping Lee Harvey Oswald from shooting John F. Kennedy JR. Think of going back even further and killing a young Adolf Hitler. That's just two examples, but the obvious follow-up is this...how could changing one person's life affect millions of others? So goes 1980's The Final Countdown.

It's 1979 and defense contractor Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen) has been chosen to take an advisory trip on the U.S.S. Nimitz, a US Navy nuclear carrier stationed in the Pacific. On board, Capt. Yelland (Kirk Douglas) welcomes Lasky and offers to help in any way he can. Others, like Wing Commander Owens (James Farentino), aren't so convinced Lasky's there to help. All personal grudges are thrown to the curb when the Nimitz sails into a horrific storm unlike anyone onboard has ever been through. On the other side of the storm, everything seems to be okay. The carrier can move as quickly as ever, all weapons and communications systems still work, and the crew is all right.

But something's not quite right. The radio is broadcasting Jack Benny shows, the radio frequencies and codes are years past their usefulness, and oddly enough, Japanese fighter planes are seen in the vicinity. Lasky, Yelland and crew figure it out; the Nimitz has somehow traveled back in time. It's December 6, 1941, just hours before the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The debate starts immediately as to what they should do, intervene and prevent the attack and change history or do nothing and let America's involvement in WWII come to fruition?

Time travel is about as complicated as anything presented in science fiction. Shows like Lost and Flash Forward and countless movies have dealt with the subject with all it's little wrinkles and differences. Sheen's Lasky wonders aloud 'if we stop the attack and therefore stop America in WWII, do we cease to exist because the line of time that caused us to be there is now altered?' It's the type of conversation that hurts your head just thinking about it and all the possibilities. But that's the fun of the premise; what if?

The build-up and the mounting clues as Yelland tries to figure out what is going on are the high points of the movie. The problem is in the final 30 minutes as Yelland makes his decision on what to do with his attack force of almost 100 modern jet fighters. The problem? It's a cop out ending. There is no ending. Recently, Quentin Tarantino rewrote history with his Inglourious Basterds, and I found myself wishing 'Countdown' did that too. But it doesn't, settling for an ending that makes sense but doesn't do anything risky. It's a safe decision, and unfortunately one that brings the movie down a notch. There is a worthwhile twist in the final scene, but not one to steer the movie back on course.

A positive to take away is the casting with veteran star Kirk Douglas taking the lead as Capt. Yelland, the commander of the USS Nimitz. Yelland must decide what to do in a situation no Navy officer ever figured on having to do, change history or follow orders. Sheen gets the more showy part as Lasky, the defense contractor always looking for alternatives. It's his character that believes with one fell swoop the whole timeline of history could be altered for the better. Farentino is also good as Owens, the amateur historian and expert fighter pilot. Charles Durning and Katharine Ross play Senator Samuel Chapman and his aide Laurel who living in 1941 become the unwilling participants aboard a time-traveling carrier. Ron O'Neal is also good as Cmdr. Thurman, Yelland's right hand man.

This is a science fiction story ripe with potential that never really delivers in the end. Too bad because even with a disappointing ending, 'Countdown' is still a movie I'd recommend because the premise is so interesting and out of the box of normal movie storytelling. Good cast, especially Douglas and Sheen, and some great footage aboard an immense US carrier. Dated special effects be damned, this one is still worth seeing.

The Final Countdown <----trailer (1980): ** 1/2 /****