The Core (Jon Amiel, 2003)

[Magb]

Not a very current film, I know, but I wrote this somewhat lengthy review of it a while ago and I have a strange urge to show it to someone. Here goes.


Glory of glories. I have gazed upon the face of God, and I can not say whether the act has rendered me blind or if it has opened my eyes for the first time. My mind is reeling and my head is spinning. Angels of madness sing songs of joy and despair in my ears. I have seen The Core.

Disaster movies are infamous for their casual attitude towards science, logic and common sense. The filmmakers ask us to suspend our disbelief, and for the most part we comply. We may giggle when characters get terminology or units of measurement from fields we happen to have some knowledge of mixed up, but we forgive them as long as the films offer some thrills and laughs. The Core has broken the deal. I can't and won't accept this grave, grave insult of a movie. It is an affront unto science and every human achievement. I do not accept the explanation that The Core takes place in some alternate universe where different laws of nature apply, because I do not accept that such a fundamentally retarded universe can exist, even in theory. I do not accept it.

Where to start. Jesus Christ, where to start. I was never very good at electromagnetics and such in high school physics so I won't comment on the validity of the main premise (although I'm sure it's mostly rubbish), but perhaps I could start with the vehicle they're using to get to the center of the planet. Let's just get the facts clear: 1) the ship is made from "unobtainium", a material that can simultaneously withstand extreme heat, extreme impacts and extreme pressure; 2) it has a laser that cuts through the crust of the earth like my fingernails long to drive themselves into the craniums of the people who made this film; 3) the aforementioned was accomplished entirely by a loner scientist guy living by himself in the middle of the desert, who also oversaw the building of the ship. He'd been sitting on the technology for years; all he needed was 50 billion dollars and he'd finally get to fulfill his dream of... driving a big vehicle to the core of the planet. Yes.

Despite the vehicle being a marvel of technology and engineering, it's a disaster of logistics. Several crucial plot points hinge on the fact that the crew members can't reach this and that part of the ship without dying in the process. The explanation for why this is the case is always that the guy couldn't have known that they would need to do that thing ahead of time. All right, whatever. Speaking of things they couldn't have known that they would need to do, why exactly did the crew members bring protective suits that can withstand high pressures and temperatures considering that they would surely never ever be called upon to step outside the ship? Okay, I suppose they could've been a safety measure in case something partly but not entirely horrible happened to the ship or something; it's a small fish in a sea of seafood the size of supernovas, so I won't harp on it. The bigger fish to fry in this case is that, in what has to be one of the most absurd contrivances in the history of cinema, the crew do in fact get the chance to leave the ship while somewhere on the way to the center of the planet. Far mightier writers than me could fail to describe the mind-numbing stupidity of the scene in question, and I will not tempt faith by trying.

Of course, The Core does not only fail in terms of plausibility; the writing is terrible too. The dialogue is standard lame Hollywood blockbuster fare, although the awfulness of all the surrounding material seems to emphasize the phoniness and laziness of it. The characters are about what you'd expect. They're pretty terrible, but far from the most abominable part of the movie, so I won't complain too much about them. I do have to mention the "villain", though. That's right, they managed to fit in a good, old-fashioned villain character. At first he seems merely conceited and unpleasant, but eventually it becomes clear that some weapons program he was in charge of was actually the thing that caused the catastrophe in the first place! Faced with the knowledge that his actions have already caused the deaths of countless people and will eventually destroy the planet entirely he proceeds to get even more selfish and petty. Of course, he undergoes a complete personality shift and heroically redeems himself at the end. I mean, obviously.

Oh yeah, I should probably mention the awful nerd hacker caricature they somehow managed to shoehorn in. You see, every creature on the planet is about to die, but we need someone to stop information about this from coming out by preventing people from talking about it on the internet! The populace mustn't know, lest they panic! They might run into the streets and be easy prey for the electrical storms that are destroying buildings anyway! We must procure this brilliant hacker dude, that he may save them from themselves! I can't believe how much time they spent on this braindead, special-ed, wheelchair-bound sideplot. They never even show any of the people reacting to this state of affairs anyway, so it's not only utterly stupid but also a complete waste of time for the viewers.

These are harsh words, I know, but let me tell you that on some level I found The Core to be almost operatic in its stupidity. Some films don't get quite stupid enough and end up just being annoying, but The Core in the group of those films that entertain for all the wrong reasons, like a drunk person falling down in the street. At some point you just have to throw your arms in the air and go with the flow of it. Also, it's hard to believe that the filmmakers didn't realize at some point that what they were making was in fact a profoundly terrible movie, and therefore they decided to push it to the limit. The part of me that's suggesting this is the part that's finding it hard to cope with the fact that untold millions of dollars (60, according to IMDb) were spent on the making of the film. With that much money in play, surely a few intelligent or at least mildly competent people must've been involved at some stage? Right?

Anyway, yeah, I'll admit that The Core gave me pleasure at times. One of the highlights of the film, for me, was a very brief yet absurd moment near the end where some women were shown drinking coffee outdoors at a coffee shop in Paris, despite the fact that, you know, electrical storms had been ravaging the planet for weeks or months and surely killed millions, highly concentrated sun beams had destroyed at least one major city, and birds had been going crazy and flinging themselves into windows with enough force to break bulletproof glass. "Yez Dominique, I know ze electriqual storms can come at any moment, but I simply must 'ave my coffee!" Stuff like this shows how little thought filmmakers put into their work sometimes.

The Core is bad. It's really bad. It's so bad it's good it's bad it's good it's terrible. It's everything that's wrong with Hollywood, yet somehow it's still inoffensive enough that I can't get all that worked up about it. There are worse things out there, after all. The Core doesn't have much in terms of flawed ideology, covert racism or other truly dangerous things -- it's just dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb. The ironic thing about disaster movies -- and The Core is a disaster even compared to other disaster movies -- is that they always leave you wondering if a culture that could create something so stupid was even worth saving in the first place.

[TonythePony]

Nice. Only read the start and skimmed. Will read the rest soon.

To mangle a quote about The Corps, err, I mean The Core:

"Another glorious day in the core. A day in the core is like a day on the farm. Every meal is a banquet, every paycheck a fortune, every detachable compartment a tomb! I love the core!"

[MmzHrrdb]

on some level I found The Core to be almost operatic in its stupidity.

LOL'd heartily at this. Glad you came back.