I love this movie, but I have a fetish for disaster/end of the world movies. It's actually a pretty terrible film. The film has a cool first half and it’s a movie about the end of the world which is a fear that I fixate on – the reason I like this type of movie. However, The Core is a spin on Journey to the Centre of the Earth. It’s a fairly ridiculous concept and a piece of crap story. It’s just a bad film. Even if you liked Armageddon, you’ve got to accept that this movie is not even good trash, it’s weak.
I was hoping to get an autograph from DJ Qualls on my DVD copy of The Core at Armageddon Expo (the New Zealand pop culture expo/convention.) Unfortunately, I didn’t end up going this year. I ordinarily don’t like Hilary Swank (I hated Million Dollar Baby.) However, she was amazing in Boys Don’t Cry, so she has my respect as an actress.
Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) was awesome in the half decent film, Thankyou for Smoking. So he’s cool as Dr Josh Keyes in The Core. Stanley Tucci (Conspiracy, Big Night) as Dr Zimsky and Tcheky Karyo (Kiss of the Dragon, The Patriot) as Serge are veteran artists of the highest calibre.
Characters are introduced elegantly – such as our businessman who invites us into the film. And the teacher, super-smart Keyes, who is charming and well-liked by his students, yet a very ordinary person. His ordinariness in a spectacular situation is a nice feature that could have been played with more to interesting effect, if more attention had been paid to the writing. Rather than focusing on making a (bad quality) product for a market – the disaster movie fetishists.
There is no doubt that the production value is top notch. Even some of the cinematography is nice. Because you get what you pay for.
The mystery in the beginning is intriguing and Keyes is a nice, cool, everyman character. He’s clever, like a charming version of Sherlock Holmes. I would suggest if it was still in screenplay form to ditch the end of the world concept and do the whole film about Keyes and the other scientists, they’re far more interesting.
The symptoms to the planet’s illness are cool, but nothing we haven’t seen before. And not shocking, specific enough, or violent – as to really affect the viewer.
Tucci really commits to the up-himself famous scientist role in Zimski. He’s great.
The storyline where Rebecca (Hilary Swank) saves the day but is blamed for crashing a space shuttle is a clever device to introduce her character and line her up with the series of natural phenomena that foretell the end of the planet.
This is why I say the first half of the film shows great potential in characters, writing, action, and performances. Unfortunately, instead of taking this as the core of the film and seeing where it leads, being Hollywood, they had to tack on a second half that was tired, tried and expected.
The problem with this film is that it could have been really interesting, but the second half (from the point where they shoot the ship into the ocean for the start of their voyage) when they actually try to stop the end of the world, it is wrapped up far too neatly, easily, unrealistically and predictably.
Delroy Lindo as Braz is another fun character. Noble enough to let Tucci’s prior betrayal slide off his back. Perhaps enough time has gone by that he’s no longer furious, especially when he’s being offered a job. He is a bit bitter, but probably the quirkiest character Lindo has played recently. The technological inventions are cool, but they look pretty ordinary. They lack style, but they do the job. The FX are nothing to write home about.
The Core is a very bad movie, with a half decent first half. Watch it only if you like crap movies about the end of the world.
1 star
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