Review: The Core

The world is going topsy-turvy. Birds seem to be having trouble staying in the air and all other manner of apocalyptic goings on. A space shuttle even gets forced into a crash-landing due to communication issues. Something is very, very wrong. The US government responds to all of these events by requesting the presence of geology/geophysics college professor Aaron Eckhart. He theorises that the Earth’s magnetic core has stopped spinning, and the prognosis is very dire in a not too long amount of time if something isn’t done to correct it. His idea is to travel to the Earth’s core to deliver and detonate a nuclear weapon to trigger the core into spinning once more. That sounds easy, doesn’t it? For this possibly impossible task, an eccentric genius designer and laser expert (played by Delroy Lindo) has designed a special craft to be piloted by veteran NASA commander Bruce Greenwood and the younger Hilary Swank. Eckhart will also be aboard the mission (as will Lindo), along with his French scientist pal Tcheky Karyo, and uber-arrogant geophysicist Stanley Tucci who might only be involved so that he can brag about being the saviour of humanity…that’s if any of them make it back alive! Richard Jenkins and Alfre Woodard turn up as a military General and NASA Control Chief, respectively, and Glenn Morshower plays an FBI agent, briefly. DJ Qualls turns up as an expert hacker supposedly hired to keep the Internet from leaking anything about the mission.

 

Director Jon Amiel (“Sommersby”, “Copycat”, “Creation”) and screenwriters Cooper Layne (the remake of “The Fog”) and John Rogers (the dreaded “Catwoman”) pretty much give us “Fantastic Voyage (to the Centre of the Earth)” here with this 2003 B-movie with a B+ cast (Yes, despite two Oscars, Hilary Swank is probably considered a B+ actress in 2016). Or to put it another way, it’s “Armageddon” without all of the time-wasting bullshit. This is a textbook example of how to do a cheesy disaster movie without it being bloated, boring and empty.

 

Good casting with some legit acting talent really helps here. It’s funny that a guy who started off playing a misogynistic jerk has graduated to being one of the more reliable, dependable screen presences, but it’s true of Aaron Eckhart. When you see him on screen, you know you’re in good hands, and neither the actor nor character disappoint. Similarly, Hilary Swank has likeability you just can’t teach, which is part of the reason why she was so appallingly miscast in “The Black Dahlia”. With an innate humility, she’s instantly sympathetic here, but also believable in the part. I understand she’s a bit ‘aw, shucks’ for some, but I really like her. Underneath them you’ve got a helluva dependable roster of character actors filling out the character parts and functionary types that are a staple of this type of thing. Although he’s not quite playing the Donald Pleasance role from “Fantastic Voyage”, the always enjoyable Stanley Tucci’s very casting here (and that ridiculous grey hairpiece) do have you eyeing his character with suspicion at every turn, and I believe it’s deliberate. You’re wondering if all of a sudden he’s gonna turn into Dr. Smith throughout. Meanwhile, he’s not around long, but seeing Bruce Greenwood in good guy roles in this and then watching him try to be a bad guy in something else, is like night and day. He’s just not bad guy material, and thankfully he’s not playing one here. Richard Jenkins and the rarely seen these days Tcheky Karyo are rock-solid in stock roles, with the former playing your standard military guy role here with perfect deadpan. The wonderful Alfre Woodard is sadly underused, but Delroy Lindo is clearly having more fun than anyone else as an eccentric inventor.

 

For comic relief we also get DJ Qualls as an expert hacker. He’s the only one here not taking things seriously, and for his character (that doesn’t really serve any other purpose) that’s perfectly fine. I’m not sure why Qualls doesn’t get a lot of film offers these days, but he was like the Eddie Deezen of the late 90s-early 00s, and like Deezen, pretty much went back into obscurity after that (Although IMDb tells me he’s been doing a shitload of TV in recent times, and some pretty well-known shows too, so perhaps the comparison to Eddie Deezen is a tad unkind). “Armageddon” got the balance of humour and seriousness completely wrong, but by mostly confining it to the Qualls character, this film really gets it right. I’m not sure he’s entirely essential to the plot, however. Yes, I know he’s there to try and help our heroes covertly do what they’re doing, but since that’s really only brought up after the halfway point, I still struggle to work out just what overall essential purpose he brings to the mission in the first place to even put him in the position of being able to help our heroes out. It’s a bit of a reach at the very least.

 

The central concept is science bullshit, but the film convinces you enough, mostly because it’s not trying to be “Citizen Kane” anyway, and partly because the cast don’t play down to it. It’s a tricky thing to pull off, being schlocky but not parody. Amiel and the cast pull it off. Both this film and “Armageddon” are pretty slow-paced, but this is shorter and seriously underrated. Some of the FX still look fine in 2016, but others do look too much like special FX. So it’s a mixed bag on that front.

 

Good schlock with a terrific cast just a tad shy of top-drawer, and who predominantly take it seriously, as it should be. If you’re into this kind of film, it’s a fine example of the subgenre, and a lot easier to take than say “Armageddon”. This is pretty underrated in my view.

 

Rating: B-