Movie Review: The Core (2003)
Synopsis: After a series of magnetic abnormalities lead to strange occurrences and numerous deaths around the planet, Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes determines it is the result of the Earth's core slowing down, a catastrophic event that could result in the destruction of the planet. With the help of the world's governments, he and a team use a special transport, known as Virgil, to borrow into the Earth's layers and attempt to restart the core with nuclear bombs.
Who's in it? The movie stars Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, DJ Qualls, Stanley Tucci and Christopher Shyer.
Review: I am burning off vacation time at my day job and had this afternoon off as a result. In between doing some household chores, I wound up re-watching The Core for about the dozenth time and it remains one of my favorites.
I am not going to go as far as to say this is a perfect movie. Some of the stuff seems a bit farfetched and the film does "yadda yadda" over some of the science relating to Virgil. However, if you're willing to ignore that, it is a solid and entertaining action movie.
There are a couple things that really work when it comes to this film. One of the main ones is the seemingly impossible task Virgil's crew has, re-starting a core that is the size of Mars when there is no guarantee they'll even reach that far into the Earth or have any shot of escaping. The movie plays into this as much as possible, putting them in harm's way multiple times throughout while also throwing in a couple curve balls later in the film as far as their expectations and plan are concerned.
The various characters on Virgil also play a significant role, with a mix of scientists, military/NASA personnel and even a significant wildcard in Dr. Zimsky (Tucci), who both knew the secret why the Earth's core was slowing down and seemed just opportunistic enough to save himself at the expense of the mission, even though he did end up being surprisingly helpful too.
This is also a film that does a great job making full use of DJ Qualls as the hacker, "Rat." It is arguably one of Qualls' best roles and I especially loved how Rat wasn't afraid to break the rules when things called for it. He was just one of those characters you know is going to save the day when you first see them introduced in the film.
My only real complaint is the movie was a bit predictable toward the end as far as which of Virgil's passengers would survive until the end. Sure, there was one scene that tried to put that in doubt, but only for a few seconds. It was a long enough movie to build the suspense for a bit longer.
Final Opinion: This is an exciting and entertaining film that makes full use of its cast and is fun to watch or, in my case, re-watch a dozen times.
My Grade: A
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Here are some reviews of other disaster movies:
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