The Core (2003) Reviews

• Logic takes a beating

  davidmay2006-04-28

  This expose is for people who have seen the movie and can't quite put their finger on why they have come away feeling so dirty. Well people, following are a few reasons why The Core poops all over science along with having the worst plot, characters and premise of all time. Firstly, that little speech the physicist gave to the class about sound traveling through rocks? He says something about the wavelength increasing (ding right), and then says the frequency will decrease (bzzz wrong). Frequency stays the same regardless of the medium it is traveling through. It is the wavelength that will in fact decrease. Secondly, what's with the explanation of how the Earth is going to end? Burning a peach with a deodorant can? Come on, I know military people are considered no-brainers, but he was demonstrating this to the people that lead a high tech organization. This patronises any military personnel, as well as the audience. Thirdly, The premise of the film is based around the effects that occur because the core of the Earth stops rotating. Let me just first note that there are geological records to say that the magnetic field has changed direction many times in the past, with evidence to support that each time it has been reduced close to 0. To the best of my knowledge, and that of every history book out there, this happens without any of us combusting like the peach. Fourthly, the scene with the golden gate bridge heating up because of a hole in the magnetic field? I think someone got magnetic field and ozone layer mixed up. The idea of punching a hole in a field is absurd. The field may be weakened, but the atmosphere would still protect our little bridges from cosmic radiation. Fifthly, there is a force field (magnetic) around the Earth, not much of one, but there is one, not an "electromagnetic energy field". An energy field would do sweet f*ck all to deflect radiation. The same radiation that is supposed to wipe out humans like the peach... Sixthly, 5 200-megaton nukes? Come on, those would weigh about 250 tons together. Let's try transport that on the dildo shaped 'virgil'. And the computer simulations of how they would be set off? All in 1 spot? That wouldn't create the required rotational force, since there would be no rotational force due to symmetry. He finally gets it right in the end to place them apart from each other. How they initially overlooked this one, I have no idea. Seventhly, the material used to withstand all the pressure and temperature on 'virgil' was called 'unobtainium'. nuff said. Eighthly, assuming we just spent the entirety of the world's budget on developing paradoxically copious amounts of unobtanium, it would take another 10 budgets over to have the resources to "control" the internet. Ninthly, when 'virgil' was tunneling downwards, why could the people walk around inside as if it was horizontal? They mentioned the rotating bridge, but didn't mention anything about rotating hallways, or the rip in the space-time continuum needed to walk straight between the bridge and the subsequent hallways. The compartments would need to rotate individually, which would put them out of alignment with each of the other compartments. Logically, they would be aligned parallel for everyone to be walking horizontal, and not fall to the front of the ship, as the front is pointing towards the centre of the Earth. If only they could pretend virgil was round, and the entire inside could rotate as one. A pity every shot shows a long cylindrical ship incapable of this. Tenthly, the giant geode that they crash into? All that pressure, all that temperature? But if that wasn't enough, they get out, and walk around. I know those space suits they had on looked cool, but they couldn't withstand the ~1000 degrees of temperature, and a few thousand kPa of pressure that is needed to keep the geode from collapsing under the weight of the world. Eleventhly, when the ship springs a leak? It would have been like a nuke going off in the ship, but instead, it took a few minutes for the compartment to crush. Twelfthly, the unlucky guy that has to walk through 9000 degrees temperature in a suit only designed to withstand 5000 degrees. He makes it to the duct and switches the lever? 9000 degrees is about 2-3 times the temperature of a nuclear bomb going off. I think the walls and floor of the corridor would have been glowing white with heat. Our man would have been vaporised, but lucky for him, only his converse pumps melted to get to the lever. Thirteenthly, the guy that pulls out the plutonium rods undergoing fission? He didn't even have a helmet on. $10 says his kids will have 5 noses, 3 mouths, and a foot coming out of their heads. I guess it's a good thing though that the DNA of such a twit is wiped from our society in these industrial accidents. Fourteenthly, when the power cut out from the lack of reactor rods, they hook up the power cables to the inner hull. Where do they put the ground? There needs to be a potential drop for power to be gained, and if there was a ground, then anyone that touched the hull would have been electrocuted. Fifteenthly, the arming code for the nukes was the first four prime numbers... 1 2 3 5... Pretty sure 1 is not a prime number. Well, thats about all, and thats not even going into the fact about how the core could stop spinning in the first place. Thanks for your time.

• I actually enjoyed this one...

  buiger2007-04-29

  How do you jump start the Earth's core? Well, if you want to find out (and have a few laughs in between) all you need to do is watch 'The Core'... Yes, it's stupid, yes, it makes no sense, yes, the science is flawed, and yes, it's impossible. Nevertheless, I have to say I enjoyed watching this movie. It's one of those 'get a beer and some popcorn, turn your brain off and enjoy the afternoon' type of pictures. If you are not pretentious and take this film for what it is, you are more likely than not to enjoy it as I did. All in all, this is a classic disaster flick, and for a disaster flick, this is above average.

• Core has chewy center, cheesy surface

  dfranzen702003-09-23

  Hollywood's gone to the outer reaches of our galaxy (not to mention others), it's plumbed the depths of the ocean, mapped dank swamps and arid deserts, but one place it hasn't gone to with any sort of regularity is the inner core itself. The Core is certainly one of those movies for which one must suspend disbelief. It's a science-fiction movie that emphasizes fiction over all; that is, the physics of the film don't hold up to snuff. If you're an engineer or physicist, you should be smart enough not to watch it - you'll just spend most of your time second-guessing the inane psuedoscience. It seems the inner core of the Earth has stopped spinning, for some reason, and this has caused the electromagnetic field that surrounds and protects the planet to begin to decompose. This is evidenced by, among other things, pigeons in Tralfagar Square in London suddenly veering at plate-glass windows and sundry people who wish they were extras in a less-violent movie, like Daddy Daycare or maybe Finding Nemo. At any rate, the world's leading scientists, commissioned by the military (it wouldn't be a Save the Planet from Imminent Destruction without our pals in the movie military), figure out that the core's stopped rotating, and that Something Must Be Done to get it going again. Ah, but what? We've only drilled down about 8 miles, and according to my calculations the distance from the surface to the core is .... a bit further. We must drill down, sayeth the sage scientists, and lo and behold, through the magic of movies, there's this guy in the desert who's been working on a laser rocket thingy that'll help them blast all the way down. This handy little thing is just the cure, so a crew is hastily assembled: Commander Iverson (Bruce Greenwood), Major Beck Childs (Hilary Swank), Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart), Dr. Serge Leveque (Tcheky Karyo), Dr. Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), and Dr. Ed Brazzelton. Like such doomsday movies as Armageddon, what The Core has going for it are likeable characters and a lot of nifty FX. It also has the unknown working for it; we don't know what lies beneath the thin crust of the Earth, because we haven't drilled beyond it. That allows filmmakers a lot of free reign to depict whatever the heck they want in terms of What's Down There. What The Core has going against it, however, is a predictable plot and some howlingly awful dialog. Now, it's not giving anything away to mention that at least one person doesn't make it back from this mission. It's also not giving anything away to note that there's at least one knockdown, drag-out hissy fit of a scene in which Keyes admonishes Childs for something she didn't do. It's hysterical to watch, although I suspect the emotion the director was attempting to convey was more like empathy, not euphoria. Or ennui, which is unfortunately how some of the movie felt. The Core is cheesy. No, not the actual inner core - although, come to think of it, maybe it is, since we don't know for sure what it's made of. And wouldn't that be fitting? A cheesy core for a cheesy film made by cheesy people in a cheesy society? Who's up for some Muenster?

• A middling, mildy entertaining diversion.

  Li-12003-04-18

  ** out of **** The Core is the "low-budget" answer to Armageddon, meaning it was made on less than half the cost but desires to be its equal in delivering thrills and big buckets of popcorn fun. Now, whether or not you liked Armageddon is a good determinant of whether or not you should even bother watching The Core in the first place. I myself haven't seen that Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer production in a while, and memory serves that it was an unbelievably preposterous, but enjoyable thrill ride that had a great sense of humor. How does The Core compare? Well, if I hadn't seen Armageddon, I might have liked this film more, which is not to say that it's a weaker movie, just that the disaster formula plays out in much the same way so there's a sense of deja vu hanging over the proceedings. There are a lot of people out there who hated Armageddon, perhaps for its absurd science or for its quick-cut action sequences, so for those who didn't like the latter, The Core would be more up their alley, though the science here is even sillier. The premise is the anti-Deep Impact/Armageddon. A group of expert individuals have to go to the center of the Earth to jumpstart the core, which has stopped spinning for some unknown reason. Heading this mission is professor Josh Keys (Aaron Eckhart), who's leading a six-man team, with a woman playing a key role, of course, as the pilot, played by Hilary Swank. Recognizable faces Delroy Lindo, Tcheky Karyo, Stanely Tucci, and Bruce Greenwood round out the rest of this very expendable team. Already, we realize the plot is fundamentally impossible. The only people who wouldn't recognize this are those still in grade school, so they'll probably get a kick out of the movie while thinking they're getting some kind of education out of this because of all the scientific mumbo-jumbo and technobabble. More discriminatory viewers will scoff at all the sudden new inventions that aid our intrepid group of heroes, particularly the hull Delroy Lindo devises that's actually strengthened by heat. For me, scientific flaws are acceptable so long as it's not so blatantly obvious, but this movie's stretching my suspension of disbelief. But those who don't care for any scientific inaccuracies will wonder, is the action any good? The answer's a mixed bag. Almost all the action is entirely CGI-related, so the question of whether or not you find it exciting to see an "earthcraft" (named Virgil) get banged around quite a few times is crucial to your enjoyment. The action aboveground is all given away in the trailers, and none of it's particularly exciting, thanks to the weak special effects. The space shuttle crash, the destruction of the Roman Colosseum and the Golden Gate bridge are not examples of CGI-work at its best, to put it kindly. A 60 million dollar budget isn't quite enough to pull a movie of this sort off, and it sometimes shows. Surprisingly enough, the scenes set below ground do somewhat make up for the slack. A crisis is introduced every five to ten minutes to keep the characters working, so what we get is a briskly paced and often enjoyable second half. The effects work is still spotty, but I found the characters relatively engaging, the situations fairly compelling, and the Mcgyverish-solutions amusing. Still marring this outing on a consistent basis, however, are the film's predictability, the occasionally really bad dialogue, the lack of solid intentional humor, and the stilted finale. The Core is not an unenjoyable timewaster, but it's not exactly a great night at the movies, either.

• Just Fun

  DumaNV2003-04-07

  A really nice way to spend an afternoon, The Core does not pretend to be a huge Sci-Fi mega movie, but rather a pretty good romp with some pretty nice special effects (the birds, the Golden Gate Bridge, etc.) and even like to poke at itself. I love Sci-Fi movies where the professor or the hot-shot pilot don't have all the answers and yes, there are holes in this film that you could drive cities through, but really, who cares? Sit back, munch on that popcorn, sip on that soda, and have just fun with this predictable, simple, yet enjoyable movie.