The Core ««½
PG-13, 135m. 2003
Cast & Credits: Aaron Eckhart (Dr. Josh Keyes), Tchéky Karyo (Dr. Serge Leveque), Richard Jenkins (Gen. Thomas Purcell), Hilary Swank (Maj. Rebecca Childs), Bruce Greenwood (Col. Robert Iverson), Alfre Woodard (Talma Stickley), Stanley Tucci (Dr. Conrad Zimsky), Delroy Lindo (Dr. Ed 'Braz' Brazzleton). Screenplay by Cooper Lane and John Rogers. Directed by Jon Amiel.
A number of previous disaster movies came to mind while watching The Core but the one picture I found it most resembles is the 1951 sci-fi classic, When Worlds Collide. The story involved a runaway planet on a collision course with Earth where the end result would be the complete annihilation of the human race. As a result, a group of scientists design a rocket ship that will take a hundred or more chosen survivors to the planet to start a new civilization.
In The Core, Earth’s population is also threatened to the brink of extinction, not by a runaway planet, but because the planet has stopped spinning, which for reasons I am still unsure about, or reasons only someone specialized in physics, could explain.
Like those rocket designers from When Worlds Collide, The Core has Earth’s top scientists led by Aaron Eckhart designing a special rocketship that will take them to the center of the planet to detonate a few nuclear warheads in hopes of forcing the sphere to begin rotation again.
Watching The Core, I almost expected to hear the frantic, annoying sounds of some announcer on the P.A. system tell the builders there is only so much time left and to “Hurry! Hurry!” with the ship’s completion like I did in When Worlds Collide.
The main highlight of When Worlds Collide was producer George Pal’s Oscar winning special effects shots of cataclysmic destruction that occur midway through the film and last about ten minutes. The horrific, but spectacular special effects shots in The Core last a lot longer and are spread out over the course of the film’s 135 minutes. People with pacemakers suddenly drop dead for no reason, as do half the birds while the rest of the winged animals ram themselves into buildings. The most memorable shot is of the melting of the Golden Gate Bridge and a scene that has the space shuttle landing in Los Angeles instead of the Nevada desert. The scene would be humorous were it not for the recent loss of the Shuttle Columbia and her crew in February earlier this year.
All this is sort of fun. I found it ironic that if such a disaster were to happen and we did, in fact, have to travel to the Earth’s core, which I doubt could seriously be done anyway, how all these years, we’ve focused on going up in space. Now, here we are journeying in the opposite direction into the ground with mission control’s top people (Alfre Woodard and Richard Jenkins) monitoring the whole situation from an undisclosed location.
Like every other disaster movie, The Core dredges up a lot of illogical nonsense. When the military asks one of the chief builders (Delroy Lindo) what type of metal is being used on the special ship that could keep the crew from melting at 2000 plus degrees, he says the word can’t be pronounced and calls it “unobtainium.” The most memorable character is Stanley Tucci who is a unique combination of Mr. Spock, Carl Sagan, and any panicky character you can recall from past disaster epics who want to be the first one safe.
Then there is the moment where the space shuttle’s co-pilot (Hilary Swank) comes up with an idea on how to land the ship in L.A. just as it’s coming in over the city. I seriously doubt the space shuttle’s computerized descent can be altered so quickly when it’s coming in at a speed much faster than any jet plane.
The question, however, begets as to what makes The Core stand out from some of the other disaster movies. Independence Day (1996) was a clever sci-fi tribute to Irwin Allen’s film catastrophes of the 1970s. Both ID4 and Armageddon (1998) brought up in their own way, as silly as it was, notions of American patriotism. Deep Impact (1998) went off on another tangent in which the characters waited for death. The Perfect Storm (2000) made me hope the sailors would make it home while in Titanic (1997), I kept hoping the luxury liner wouldn’t sink.
The Core offers nothing new which is why I can only partially recommend it, for now that is. I suspect years from now while channel surfing I will come across this film, watch it again and find I liked it better than I did the first time.
©4/23/03
PG-13, 135m. 2003
Cast & Credits: Aaron Eckhart (Dr. Josh Keyes), Tchéky Karyo (Dr. Serge Leveque), Richard Jenkins (Gen. Thomas Purcell), Hilary Swank (Maj. Rebecca Childs), Bruce Greenwood (Col. Robert Iverson), Alfre Woodard (Talma Stickley), Stanley Tucci (Dr. Conrad Zimsky), Delroy Lindo (Dr. Ed 'Braz' Brazzleton). Screenplay by Cooper Lane and John Rogers. Directed by Jon Amiel.
In The Core, Earth’s population is also threatened to the brink of extinction, not by a runaway planet, but because the planet has stopped spinning, which for reasons I am still unsure about, or reasons only someone specialized in physics, could explain.
Like those rocket designers from When Worlds Collide, The Core has Earth’s top scientists led by Aaron Eckhart designing a special rocketship that will take them to the center of the planet to detonate a few nuclear warheads in hopes of forcing the sphere to begin rotation again.
Watching The Core, I almost expected to hear the frantic, annoying sounds of some announcer on the P.A. system tell the builders there is only so much time left and to “Hurry! Hurry!” with the ship’s completion like I did in When Worlds Collide.
The main highlight of When Worlds Collide was producer George Pal’s Oscar winning special effects shots of cataclysmic destruction that occur midway through the film and last about ten minutes. The horrific, but spectacular special effects shots in The Core last a lot longer and are spread out over the course of the film’s 135 minutes. People with pacemakers suddenly drop dead for no reason, as do half the birds while the rest of the winged animals ram themselves into buildings. The most memorable shot is of the melting of the Golden Gate Bridge and a scene that has the space shuttle landing in Los Angeles instead of the Nevada desert. The scene would be humorous were it not for the recent loss of the Shuttle Columbia and her crew in February earlier this year.
All this is sort of fun. I found it ironic that if such a disaster were to happen and we did, in fact, have to travel to the Earth’s core, which I doubt could seriously be done anyway, how all these years, we’ve focused on going up in space. Now, here we are journeying in the opposite direction into the ground with mission control’s top people (Alfre Woodard and Richard Jenkins) monitoring the whole situation from an undisclosed location.
Like every other disaster movie, The Core dredges up a lot of illogical nonsense. When the military asks one of the chief builders (Delroy Lindo) what type of metal is being used on the special ship that could keep the crew from melting at 2000 plus degrees, he says the word can’t be pronounced and calls it “unobtainium.” The most memorable character is Stanley Tucci who is a unique combination of Mr. Spock, Carl Sagan, and any panicky character you can recall from past disaster epics who want to be the first one safe.
Then there is the moment where the space shuttle’s co-pilot (Hilary Swank) comes up with an idea on how to land the ship in L.A. just as it’s coming in over the city. I seriously doubt the space shuttle’s computerized descent can be altered so quickly when it’s coming in at a speed much faster than any jet plane.
The question, however, begets as to what makes The Core stand out from some of the other disaster movies. Independence Day (1996) was a clever sci-fi tribute to Irwin Allen’s film catastrophes of the 1970s. Both ID4 and Armageddon (1998) brought up in their own way, as silly as it was, notions of American patriotism. Deep Impact (1998) went off on another tangent in which the characters waited for death. The Perfect Storm (2000) made me hope the sailors would make it home while in Titanic (1997), I kept hoping the luxury liner wouldn’t sink.
The Core offers nothing new which is why I can only partially recommend it, for now that is. I suspect years from now while channel surfing I will come across this film, watch it again and find I liked it better than I did the first time.
©4/23/03
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