This is what I miss about the '90s.

Ahhh, the 1990's. The Cold War was over and the U.S. military was seen as just a collection of slackers with nothing worthwhile to do. The biggest concern of our nation was what our President was doing with his interns. The internet-driven "new economy" was going to make us a nation of billionaires. Grunge rock lived.

But a dark shadow was gathering in Mordor...(whoops, wrong plot line). The Soviet Union's collapse had left a power vacuum and the former Soviet states were selling weapons and fissionable matter to anyone who could trade a couple of cases of vodka. 'Rogue states' began to posture themselves to defy the sleeping giant. Muslim extremists became increasingly outraged by America's decadence and our ever more vulgararized culture. Behind the curtain a gaunt, bearded figure named Ossama bin Laden began to formulate a plan.

So, 20th cent. Fox decides to make a comedy about it. Terrorists are buying weapons? America's Cold War military is unfit to counter the looming threat? Well, what if the Navy did a wargame to simulate a terrorist submarine's attack on American ports? Have the skipper be a Clinton-esque poster boy for reckless behavior, and give him a crew of misfits from affirmative-action America with gender/racial equality and family therapy for all.

Could this movie be made in the 2000's? HECK NO! If you are portraying the military, it better be SERIOUSLY. In fact, I don't think too many military movies have come out lately... that is always a bad sign, same thing happened in Vietnam.

And, can our rebel captain, his rust-bucket sub and outcast crew surpass the best the modern navy has to throw at them? If they do, he wins a new command and we can cheer for them all, but what does his success mean? That terrorists can indeed strike the US at will???

And all this in a *comedy*? Oh, how I miss the '90s.

One modernist note I detected concerns Harry Dean Stanton's memorable performance as 'Chief Engineer Lt. Howard.' This character is obviously the first victim of the military's 'stop-loss' program. You may recall that he never wears a uniform during the film, just a beat-up old yachting cap. Although it is never explained verbally, he is obviously retired but has been temporarily called back to service because nobody in the new navy remembers how to run a diesel-electric sub.

Some day when and if I have kids, they are going to ask me what it was like to live in an age when an unattended suitcase was not an object of fear, when a man could retain his shoes and his dignity when entering an airport, when 911 was just the phone number you dialed in an emergency.

And I shall put 'Down Periscope' into the DVD player and let them learn.