“It’s the end of the world!”
How many times have we heard that in disaster movie dialogue? Well, get ready to hear it a few more times. The Core is an unoriginal, unmoving and overlong journey to the center of the earth.
When 32 people suddenly drop dead for no apparent reason and hundreds of pigeons go nuts, U.S. government officials approach geophysics professor Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) and atomic weapons specialist Dr. Serge Leveque (Tcheky Karyo) to determine if the occurrences are the result of an enemy weapon.
When Keyes discovers all of the deceased people wore pacemakers, he instead suspects a problem with the earth’s electromagnetic field. Birds can no longer navigate, huge lightning bolts destroy buildings, bridges collapse, and a space shuttle piloted by Colonel Robert Iverson (Bruce Greenwood) and Major Rebecca “Beck” Childs (Hilary Swank) gets off course and has to crash-land in downtown Los Angeles.
After consulting famed geophysicist Dr. Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), Keyes concludes that the earth’s inner core has stopped spinning. If it isn’t restarted, the planet will be fried by radiation within a few months. Luckily, Zimsky just happens to know someone who’s been building a machine capable of tunneling to the center of the earth – what a coincidence! Its inventor, Dr. Ed Brazzelton (Delroy Lindo), is enlisted to join Keyes, Leveque, Zimsky, Iverson and Childs to round out the prefabricated crew of “terranauts” who will make the trip to the inner core and jump-start it using nuclear weapons. Why does America always have to solve the world’s problems?
By the end of the film, crew members have died, heroes have emerged, and the planet has been saved. But you already knew that if you’ve ever seen a disaster movie.
The thing that made The Core‘s predecessors Armageddon and Deep Impact believable, farfetched as they were, was the human element. Your emotions were involved because you cared about the characters. You saw their loved ones’ sadness, you saw the crew members’ fear, and you saw the nation’s joy and pride when the heroes returned home. You’ll see none of that in The Core. The terranauts show no fear or hesitation about making a trip during which they will probably all die, and if they’re not concerned, why should the viewer be?
The premise of The Core is almost plausible, and it could have made a great film. The biggest problem is the uneven script. Sometimes it’s great; sometimes it’s terrible. There is an excess of end-of-the-world dialogue, which is all too familiar by now. However, the writing shines when characters are interacting. Eckhart is naturally funny and handsome, and Karyo is equally charming as his French scientist buddy. Their witty banter makes the first half of the film watchable. The rest of The Core is carried by the exchanges between Eckhart and Swank. Their romance is predictable, of course, but the stars have the right chemistry and acting chops to pull it off.
Meanwhile, DJ Qualls portrays “Rat,” a young computer hacker assisting the mission. Qualls, who was hilarious as a skinny nerd in Road Trip, isn’t given enough screen time to deliver a solid performance in The Core, though it’s clear he was meant to serve as a comic foil.
At over two hours, the film is much longer than it should be. It drags along much of the time, especially during the overlong trip to the center of the earth. The ending is largely unsatisfying and doesn’t justify the viewer having sat through a couple hours of less than thrilling “thrills.” The special effects are decent, but not breathtaking, and The Core steals scenes and ideas from no fewer than six other films, including Apollo 13, Armageddon, The Birds, The Matrix, Independence Day, and Superman (look for a glorified Planet Krypton knock-off).
Is The Core original and well made? No. Is it entertaining? Surprisingly, yes. It’s an easy, no-need-to-think way to spend two hours. And it’s certainly more fun than watching the news.
