The Core

Release Date: March 28, 2003
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Director: Jon Amiel
Screenwriter: Cooper Layne, John Rogers
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, D.J. Qualls, Tcheky Karyo, Richard Jenkins, Bruce Greenwood, Alfre Woodard
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sci-fi life/death situations and brief strong language)
Official Website: TheCoremovie.com
Production Stills: View images
Plot Summary: Geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Eckhart) discovers that an unknown force has caused the earth's inner core to stop rotating. With the planet's magnetic field rapidly deteriorating, our atmosphere literally starts to come apart at the seams with catastrophic consequences. To resolve the crisis, Keyes, along with a team of the world's most gifted scientists, travel into the earth's core in a subterranean craft piloted by "terranauts," Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs (Swank) and Colonel Robert Iverson (Greenwood). Their mission: detonate a device that will reactivate the core.

Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2003
- Better than a cheese royale: buy one while its hot

The Core throwbacks to the apocalyptic mayhem of Independence Day and Deep Impact, has a Journey to the Centre of the Earth premise and with its best sense exaggerates for humorous effect the various clichés and expressions of disaster stories like what Galaxy Quest did for Star Trek idiosyncrasies.

The streets of an American city stands still as people die unexpectedly, while in Trafalgar Square in London groups of pigeons uncharacteristically fly into store windows, a nod to Hitchcock’s The Birds, and unusual formations of lights appear in the sky at night around the world. Government agents recruit university lecturer and scientist Dr. Keyes (Eckhart) to uncover the mystery.

Meanwhile, a NASA space shuttle crash-lands in a Los Angeles public place led off the straight and narrow by freak occurrences in the core of the earth, as diagnosed by Keyes and fellow scientist Dr. Conrad Zimsky (Tucci) in an urgent meeting of national security agents and scientists. They identify the problem can only be rectified by going underground into the core of earth, presumably impossible, if it weren’t for a crew headed by NASA pilot Major ‘Beck’ Childs (Swank) to head for the depths in an earthworm-like contraption christened Virgil.

The hyperbole comes across as more cynical than the tones of Galaxy Quest’s; in the latter the parody is mild-mannered and reverential, in The Core the tone is sharp and unafraid to exploit clichés boldly, including not taking its visual style too seriously. The crayon cum pastel aesthetics are low budget, an ode to less sophisticated special effects of an earlier time and a playful critique on the modern-day effects movie. This makes for amusing viewing, more entertaining than if it was really supposed to be a serious attempt at the end of the world yarn, and satisfyingly brings to an end the Independence Day style blockbuster from the mainstream. As well as the several humorous set pieces the performances by a strong cast make the parody work all the more.

This ultimately celebrates the apocalyptic "end of world" genre by parodying it and nods assent to those that do save the earth by film’s end, except the conclusion is more satisfying and cogent than most of the films this puts on display.