Directed by Jon Amiel, written by Cooper Layne and John Rogers
The Core is a dumb film. Dumb dumb dumb. The science is garbage. The very concept of drilling through the Earth’s mantle and setting off a nuke to jump start the spinning of the core is stupider than a box of rocks. If you’re worried what Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks of you, you should banish all thought of this movie from your mind. It never existed.
But I love this movie. I would rather watch this movie with a bucket of popcorn than both Cosmos series. This is the kind of movie popcorn was made for.
Let’s start with the film’s cast. Aaron Eckhart as the square-jawed hero scientist. Hilary Swank as the hotshot pilot with something to prove. Bruce Greenwood as her mentor. Stanley Tucci as Carl Sagan. Delroy Lindo as Nikola Tesla. Richard Jenkins. Alfre Woodard with a Texas drawl. If you didn’t know any better, this wasn’t a sci-fi B movie, but a summer tentpole adventure. (Even though the entire Earth is in peril, only Tcheky Karyo’s French scientist provides any hint of international participation.)
And then there is the preposterous story. The Earth’s core has stopped spinning, causing natural disasters, but only in tourist spots like the Trafalgar Square, the Colosseum, and the Golden Gate Bridge—apparently everyone in Davenport, Iowa, is okay. There is a solution, however. Dr. Ed Brazzleton (Delroy Lindo), like every good movie scientist working on his own in total isolation, has invented a ship that can cut through the Earth’s crust and survive the intense heat and pressure of the mantle. It’s made of unobtainium, you see, so that answers all your questions about how that’s possible. The unobtainium ship is a brilliant plot device, circumventing all physics so we can get to the adventure. I love it. (Too bad about those Na’vi.)
Why do I love it? Howard Hawks’ formula for a hit movie was “three great scenes, no bad scenes.” The Core delivers on this front. The first great scene is the space shuttle landing in the Los Angeles River. The conceit is silly (wouldn’t LAX be the ideal alternative landing spot?), but the execution is perfect. It’s full of tension and establishes the relationship between Commander Iverson (Greenwood) and Major Childs (Swank). That sets up great scene number two, after Iverson dies and Childs, now in charge, must make the decision to sacrifice a crew member for the sake of the mission.
Even though the stakes are high (every human, animal, and plant life on planet Earth), the humans aboard the Virgil and in Mission Control are in constant conflict with one another. Tucci’s Dr. Zimsky stole research from Brazzleton. Woodard’s mission controller discovers Jenkins’ General Purcell is hiding a consequential secret. That leaves it up to Eckhart’s Dr. Keyes to hold it all together. And he does. After he bawls Childs out for her fateful command decision, he enters the cockpit calmed down and ready for scientific combat. There are no words—he’s moved on from his grief for the sake of the mission. His personal moderation gives others the space they need to find their reserves of heroism and self-sacrifice.
The Core recalls 1950s sci-fi flicks like Fantastic Voyage and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Or King Kong or Godzilla. Like those movies, The Core was not made for the MIT faculty, but for the multiplex. Scientists and eggheads sniffed at the movie and derided it for its scientific unseriousness. But The Core only intended the geophysics of the movie as clotheslines on which to hang inventive visualizations and a space adventure that takes place in millions of gallons of molten magma. You may as well criticize the physiology of a forty-foot tall ape.
In his review of The Core, Roger Ebert wrote, “I have such an unreasonable affection for this movie, indeed, that it is only by slapping myself alongside the head and drinking black coffee that I can restrain myself from recommending it.” No need for the slap. I’ll recommend it. I have an unreasonable affection for The Core and I am not ashamed. Neil deGrasse Tyson can uninvite me from his Christmas party if he wants. But if he wants an afternoon of unconstrained cinema entertainment, he should throw a Jiffy Pop on the range, invite some middle schoolers over, and enjoy The Core.
