Type:
Theatrical Movie
Year:
2003
Production:
Paramount Pictures
Feature:
3/5
Teaser
Boston: thirty-six people in a ten-block radius all die at the same
time. London: all the pigeons start flying around and banging into
things, like they can't tell where they're going. Washington DC:
unusually vivid Aurora Borealis displays. Unrelated events? Doctor (of
Geophysics) Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) doesn't think so. He and his
grad students have taken all available data and come to a startling
conclusion -- the Earth's eletro-magnetic field is failing. Within a
year all life on Earth will have been extinguished.
Apparently the Earth's outer core has stopped spinning and it is that
spinning which generates the electro-magnetic field that protects the
Earth from the solar winds. The United States forms a mission team who
will travel to the outer core and detonate five 200 Megaton nuclear
bombs, which should get the outer core spinning again.
The team will be headed by Dr Keyes. NASA Astronauts (and Air Force
pilots) Commander Robert Iverson (Bruce Greenwood) and Major Rebecca
Childs (Hilary Swank) will pilot Virgil, the specially constructed
burrower designed by Dr Ed Brazzelton (Delroy Lindo) who is also going.
Dr Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci) is in charge of the bomb placement
while Dr Serge Leveque (Tcheky Karyo) is in charge of the bombs
themselves. They are Earth's last hope.
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Comments
"The Core" is a cross between "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and
"Armageddon". It is an action film first and pretty much only. Now, I
did see this with my friends and they were rather critical about the
technical inaccuracies. But if you know going in that it's an action
movie you won't notice the dubious science -- not bad science for the
most part, just rather improbable.
I actually thought it was going to be rather boring once they broke
through the Earth's mantle. You have a movie where you have six people
in essentially a room travelling through a viscous and boringly uniform
molten soup (i.e. there's nothing to see outside). Doesn't sound like
an engaging plot. But the writers were able to put in some things to
liven up the trip and so it was interesting.
Actors
I'm thinking that Hilary Swank must have been itching to do an action
movie or she needed the money -- I mean she did win an Oscar, it's not
as if she has to take these roles. But though the story is borderline
stupid, the acting by the cast is fairly good. Stanley Tucci is a
suitably self-interested not quite villain. Aaron Eckhart is the
rational hero. Delroy Lindo is a sort of crackpot inventor type. Tcheky
Karyo, who I keep confusing with Gerard Depardieu, is good as the
doomed best friend.
Recommendations
I did like watching "The Core", and not having any hobbits helps. For a
Springtime action movie it's ok. Good enough now since there isn't much
competition in the genre, but it will be buried and forgotten in a
month as the early Summer action movies come out. |