The Core

Review by Jason Gaston

Welcome to a time in the year I like to call pre-Summer movie season. This is where a lot of blockbuster wannabes end up, usually they blow and usually they end up making a mint in the process. Now, the best movies won't be found during the month of March, but occasionally you'll find a gem or two.

Take The Core for example. Make no bones about it, as far as science fiction goes, this movie feels like it was made 40 years too late... a flick that would be better served if it was in black and white and enjoyed late night on AMC or Turner Classic Movies. The science is awful, the dialogue is clumsy, and the situations are preposterous... yet, and for the life of me I don't know why... I like this movie. I hang out a lot at Rotten Tomatoes and I know from all of the flack that this film has been getting these last months before it was released that I'm required to hate this movie, but I can't... I just can't.

In case you don't know, this movie is about a disaster of a biblical and perhaps Roger Cormany scale. The core of the Earth has stopped spinning and, thus, the electromagnetic field surrounding the Earth has begun to decay. Pacemakers suddenly stop functioning... static super storms blow across the Earth with monument-destroying ferocity... solar winds break through the atmosphere and microwaves major cities like a Quick Stop burrito... and, for some reason, pigeons go berserk in what has to be the most Hitchcockian sequence since... well... Hitchcock.

Even worse, the magnetic anomalies wreak havoc with the space shuttle causing it to crash in what is perhaps the films greatest action sequence. It may send a few people squirming so soon after the Columbia crash, but I found myself with a great big smile at the end when everything worked out fine and the astronauts all made it out alive. Hey, I love escapism. So sue me.

Anyway, a team of scientists get together and creates a vessel capable of tunneling into the center of the Earth so they can plant nuclear bombs to get the planet going again. Sounds scientifically plausible, right? I mean... all the Earths problems in these kinds of movies are usually solves by planting a nuclear bomb in a strategic place.

Despite a few... all right, more than a few misgivings, I liked this movie. I liked the cast, I liked the wildly insane set-up, and I liked the special effects. The only real reason to go to a movie like this is to go watch the action and to watch lots of stuff blow up and, darnit, this movie delivers.

Maybe I'm just judging The Core from low expectations because of all the negative attention this movie's gotten. I know people are decrying the bad science, but that's why it's called science fiction. Too many people make judgments about movies before they have grounds to stand on and then, after that, they just scramble to make it look like they were right all the time.

I'm here to tell you that The Core isn't a great movie, it'll never be remembered as a great movie and, if it's lucky, it'll be remembered, period. It's got a great cast, but for the most part they feel wasted... especially Alfre Woodard who appears to just be in a glorified cameo. DJ Qualls is in the movie too... I'm glad to see that The New Guy didn't completely kill his career but, man... this kid looks like he's two steps away from death's door all the time. Someone get DJ a weight set and a cheeseburger, would ya? Note 4/1/03: I have been made aware that DJ Qualls is, in fact, a cancer survivor and staunch advocate of cancer research. You go boy!

The ending is a little too hacked, though... namely people live when there's no good damn reason for them to. The movie stretched the bullshit meter a little too much in this case.

It's tacky science fiction, but its satisfying, it's a little original at times, and other times you just have to laugh at the absurdity of the plot. Like I said, it feels like it was made forty years too late, but it's here now and me likes it.