Movie Review The Core

The Core (2003) 

Directed by Jon Amiel 

Written by John Rogers 

Starring Aaron Eckhardt, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, D.J Qualls, Richard Jenkins

Release Date March 28th, 2003 

Published March 27th, 2003 

It's not often when screenwriters make the news. When John Rogers, the co-writer of The Core, wrote in to Aint It Cool News to dispute a review that questioned the film’s science, more than a few of us took notice and had a little laugh at his expense. Granted, no one wants their work made fun of, but when you make a movie as unabashedly out there as The Core, you can't expect it to be welcomed as if it were written by Carl Sagan. 

Sci-fi films have a horrible track record of including actual science in them and the aspiration to put real science in a movie like The Core is like asking Beverly Hills Cop to include real police procedures. No one goes to disaster movies for a science lesson, they go to watch landmarks explode. The Core blows up Rome and San Francisco, mission accomplished.

Aaron Eckhart heads up an ensemble cast as Dr. Josh Keyes, a physics professor at some anonymous college. In the midst of a lecture on the layers of the Earth, Dr. Keyes is called out of class by a pair of humorless G-men. Taken on a jet to Washington D.C, he reunites with a fellow scientist and friend Sergei Levesque (Tcheky Karyo, in a rare non-villain role). The two are asked by an army General (Six Feet Under dead guy, Richard Jenkins) to theorize what environmental factors could cause a group of people with pacemakers to simply drop dead without warning.

The answer, after much lucky guessing by Dr. Keyes, is that the Earth's core has stopped spinning causing it's electromagnetic field to go haywire. Not only has it caused pacemakers to stop, but also birds have lost navigating ability and are falling from the sky. Also falling is the space shuttle which has flown off course and nearly crashes in L.A, saved only by the wits of it's plucky navigator Major Rebecca Childs.

So now that we know what's wrong, there are two questions remaining. Number one, how did this happen? And number two, how do we stop it? Thankfully, the film’s trailer has already told us both of those things. A weapon that causes earthquakes has gone too far thanks to the miscalculations of it's inventor Dr. Zimsky (Stanley Tucci). Conversely, crazy scientist Dr. "Braz" Brazzleton has a vehicle with the ability to tunnel all the way to the core. Once there, nuclear weapons can be dropped to kickstart the core. Apparently, no one had jumper cables.

To the science issue, I have no idea and really don't care if the science is real. What matters is if the film is any good. Some geologist writing somewhere said that the film has as many accurate notions as inaccuracies and that the inaccuracies are those that are necessary for dramatic purposes. WHATEVER!

Let's get to the important stuff, how cool are the explosions. Well let me tell you in the words of the late John Candy in an old SCTV sketch, stuff blow'd up, blow'd up real good. The special effects aren't spectacular but they are entertaining in a modern day Ed Wood sort of way. The Golden Gate Bridge explosion is a cheesy treat and when Rome blows up, watching the reactions of the extras running from the Coliseum is priceless.

The Core is a bad movie but in the camp sense it's genius. Whether intentional or not The Core is full of laughs from the effects to the characters. I especially liked Stanley Tucci who seemed to be channeling Dr. Smith from Lost In Space with his whiny smugness. And kudos to Delroy Lindo for assuaging his usual calm cool persona for a geekier frazzled genius demeanor that you don't expect from him.

The Core is just plain goofy and in that sense it's a lot of fun. Though it needs to be greatly pared down from it's two-hour plus runtime, it nevertheless delivers a fun little distraction.