I first saw this film 20+ years ago based on the strength of its premise and remember being powerfully disappointed. I watched it again yesterday and my opinion hasn't changed. Don't mix this up with THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT as a movie that focuses on a navy ship getting sucked into a dimensional vortex, but they do have a lot in common including how little the film seems interested in explaining anything.
There's a lot of praise to heap upon the film - it brings up some really interesting ideas (unexplored as they may be) regarding time travel and how respect for time paradoxes can conflict with one's duty as a military officer. It also offers up a heavy heaping of "aircraft carrier porn" in doses never one-upped until TOP GUN came around 6 years later. Needless to say, all the scenes of aircraft landing and taking off look 100% authentic, impressive, and awesome. The cast works pretty well too, with Kirk Douglas fitting into the role of CV skipper very comfortably. There's a couple great scenes on-hand too like when a zero pilot has to be talked out of a hostage situation.
Unfortunately, all this promise and aerospacial awesomeness servers to make the disappointment of this move feel all the more acute. I'll try and dig into it in an organized manner:
1) The movie explains basically nothing - the Nimitz gets sucked into a time vortex for absolutely no reason not once, but twice. They could easily have explained this by making it part of some kind of experiment (a la "Philadelphia") or some kind of enemy weapon, but the movie doesn't care. Shockingly, the characters in the movie don't seem to care much either, with not a single mention of a character conflicted by the possibility of leaving his family behind by going back in time.
2) The anti-climax. After reading the premise for the movie, one envisions some kind of grand showdown between a bunch of modern F14's and vintage Japanese Zeroes. The film teases it right up to the very end, with the planes launched and on their way to the big battle, only for our pesky commander to call it off and for our even more pesky wormhole to appear again. The entire selling point of the movie will have to forever remain relegated to our imaginations, along with an interesting view of what it could have meant for history to change such an event so radically.
3) The absolutely glacial pace - a side effect of shooting on a real aircraft carrier with real personnel and realistic procedures. Hence, the movie spends so much time showcasing these technicalities that it sacrifices plot movement to do so.
4) Extremely poor effects at times. While there's a lot of impressive aerial stunt work and some nifty explosions, the whole climactic scene on the helicopter induces nothing but laughter. The film spent zero money on recreating vintage Pearl Harbor to the point where they even re-use old photos and stock footage to simulate the rigging as well as the Japanese fleet. It comes off as lazy and cheap, bizarre after the film took such great pains to be authentic in terms of navy procedures.
All in all it's an interesting film worth viewing, but don't get your hopes up (which you will after reading the description, seeing the poster, and inevitably getting the 80's Rock Ballad by "Europe" stuck in your head). Seeing as the song came out 6 years after the film, the movie itself would have needed a dimensional vortex to live up to modern expectations, but it could be one of the very few films to actually benefit from a remake someday. Would it be too hard to make a film some day in which modern jets take down hundreds of Japanese Zeroes while 80's rock music blasts at full volume? History, prove me right.
There's a lot of praise to heap upon the film - it brings up some really interesting ideas (unexplored as they may be) regarding time travel and how respect for time paradoxes can conflict with one's duty as a military officer. It also offers up a heavy heaping of "aircraft carrier porn" in doses never one-upped until TOP GUN came around 6 years later. Needless to say, all the scenes of aircraft landing and taking off look 100% authentic, impressive, and awesome. The cast works pretty well too, with Kirk Douglas fitting into the role of CV skipper very comfortably. There's a couple great scenes on-hand too like when a zero pilot has to be talked out of a hostage situation.
Unfortunately, all this promise and aerospacial awesomeness servers to make the disappointment of this move feel all the more acute. I'll try and dig into it in an organized manner:
1) The movie explains basically nothing - the Nimitz gets sucked into a time vortex for absolutely no reason not once, but twice. They could easily have explained this by making it part of some kind of experiment (a la "Philadelphia") or some kind of enemy weapon, but the movie doesn't care. Shockingly, the characters in the movie don't seem to care much either, with not a single mention of a character conflicted by the possibility of leaving his family behind by going back in time.
2) The anti-climax. After reading the premise for the movie, one envisions some kind of grand showdown between a bunch of modern F14's and vintage Japanese Zeroes. The film teases it right up to the very end, with the planes launched and on their way to the big battle, only for our pesky commander to call it off and for our even more pesky wormhole to appear again. The entire selling point of the movie will have to forever remain relegated to our imaginations, along with an interesting view of what it could have meant for history to change such an event so radically.
3) The absolutely glacial pace - a side effect of shooting on a real aircraft carrier with real personnel and realistic procedures. Hence, the movie spends so much time showcasing these technicalities that it sacrifices plot movement to do so.
4) Extremely poor effects at times. While there's a lot of impressive aerial stunt work and some nifty explosions, the whole climactic scene on the helicopter induces nothing but laughter. The film spent zero money on recreating vintage Pearl Harbor to the point where they even re-use old photos and stock footage to simulate the rigging as well as the Japanese fleet. It comes off as lazy and cheap, bizarre after the film took such great pains to be authentic in terms of navy procedures.
All in all it's an interesting film worth viewing, but don't get your hopes up (which you will after reading the description, seeing the poster, and inevitably getting the 80's Rock Ballad by "Europe" stuck in your head). Seeing as the song came out 6 years after the film, the movie itself would have needed a dimensional vortex to live up to modern expectations, but it could be one of the very few films to actually benefit from a remake someday. Would it be too hard to make a film some day in which modern jets take down hundreds of Japanese Zeroes while 80's rock music blasts at full volume? History, prove me right.