The Core

Rating

Director

Jon Amiel

Screenplay

Cooper Layne, John Rogers

Length

135 min.

Starring

Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo, Tchéky Karyo, Richard Jenkins, Alfre Woodard, DJ Qualls, Bruce Greenwood

MPAA Rating

PG-13 (For sci-fi life/death situations and brief strong language)

Review

What if the government, through secret weapons testing, caused the Earth’s core to stop spinning? The Core examines the destructive effects of a planet whose core no longer spins and whose very existence hinges on the successes of a rag-tag group of scientists and astronauts.

The Core opens as a group of individuals die simultaneously within blocks of each other. Their mysterious deaths spawn an investigation that leads to a world-ending discovery. Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart), through scientific theorems, realizes that the planet’s molten core has stopped spinning creating a huge breakdown in the Earth’s atmosphere and causing the world to slowly cook to death if the violent electrical storms don’t rip the planet apart first.

It is decided that an attempt must be made to restart the Earth’s core. To do so, the government gathers a collection of scientists and astronauts. Representing the scientists are head theorist Dr. Keyes, the self-absorbed Dr. Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), ship designer Dr. Brazzelton (Delroy Lindo) and weapons specialist Dr. Serge Leveque (Tchky Karyo). Acting as ship pilots are skilled navigator Major Rebecca Childs (Hilary Swank) and lead pilot Commander Bob Iverson (Bruce Greenwood). Add in a whiz-kid hacker named Rat (D.J. Qualls) and you have a company of people who would never work together under normal circumstances.

What could have been a complete failure ends up a modest success. The performances range from good to outstanding, including leads Eckhart and Swank. In addition, the scientific theorems behind the plot are sound and interesting. What the film suffers from is a lack of direction, a lackadaisical pace and effects that don’t get the blood pumping. The screenplay by Cooper Layne and John Rogers is a fine example of what a well thought out screenplay can look like. The characters are developed enough that the audience can understand their goals. The problem is that the individual characters are standard disaster film archetypes.

Director Jon Amiel encourages the actors to over perform and maintains the film’s languid pace from beginning to end. With more emphasis on action and less on developing two-dimensional characters, The Core could have been a better movie than it is.

The film is a blend of Carl Sagan’s technical specifications and Jules Verne’s fantastical Journey to the Center of the Earth. It’s a movie that anyone who enjoys disaster films will find something entertaining whether it’s the destruction of the Roman Coliseum, the snapping of support wires on the Golden Gate Bridge, the devastating possibilities of human tragedy or the apocalyptic unity of people on the brink of destruction.

Review Written

May 7, 2003