2008 Woodie Awards
InCoreigible, but fun
Katie Andriulli and Brendan Faughnan
Issue date: 4/2/03 Section: Arts and Entertainment
By Katie Andriulli and Brendan Faughnan
The Core, a B-grade sci-fi adventure in the grand tradition of the fare ridiculed on Mystery Science Theater 3000, takes the audience on a journey to the center of the earth. The latest offering from director John Amiel (Copycat, Entrapment) is like Apollo 13 — except not in space and not in any way believable. That said, if you suspend all disbelief once the movie starts rolling, you can’t help but be entertained.
Aaron Eckhart, best known as Erin Brockovich’s down-home boyfriend, plays Josh Keyes, a hunky yet oh-so-intelligent university professor specializing in sound waves. He and an old colleague, weapons expert Sergei “Serge” Leveque played by Tcheky Karyo (the French dude from The Patriot), are called upon by the government when people start dying as a result of strange phenomena. Luckily for the people of the earth, it doesn’t take Keyes very long to figure out that the earth’s iron core has stopped spinning and that — Surprise! — everyone will be dead in a year. The various causes of death range from baking in the sun once the earth’s electro-magnetic field collapses, to being struck by lightning in storms powerful enough to destroy the Coliseum in Rome. Don’t worry about the all the scientific stuff in the movie though; the filmmakers make it dumbed down enough for your average gifted five-year-old to understand.
Apparently having viewed Armageddon a few too many times, government officials seek out a rag-tag team of scientists and experts from various fields to execute their plan of releasing five nuclear warheads into the core of the earth to restart the iron flow. Is there anything nuclear weapons can’t do?
Conveniently, Delroy Lindo’s character Dr. Edward Brazleton has developed a material that can break the laws of thermodynamics as well as a laser drill powerful enough to dig down a couple thousand miles into the earth’s core. Is that kind of top-secret independent research even legal? No matter. Soon enough, Keyes, Serge and Brazelton are slated to man the ship on its maiden voyage underground. A professor, a mad scientist and a weapons expert would be nowhere without a couple of astronauts to actually fly the contraption and a fame-seeking scientist with his head up his own derrière, and that’s where Hilary Swank, Bruce Greenwood and Stanley Tucci’s characters come in. Rounding out the group are DJ Qualls, star of such groundbreaking films as The New Guy and Road Trip, playing “Rat,” a computer hacking wiz kid whose main purpose is to conceal the mission from the public by toying with internet servers, and Alfre Woodard as the main woman at ground control.
The Core, a B-grade sci-fi adventure in the grand tradition of the fare ridiculed on Mystery Science Theater 3000, takes the audience on a journey to the center of the earth. The latest offering from director John Amiel (Copycat, Entrapment) is like Apollo 13 — except not in space and not in any way believable. That said, if you suspend all disbelief once the movie starts rolling, you can’t help but be entertained.
Aaron Eckhart, best known as Erin Brockovich’s down-home boyfriend, plays Josh Keyes, a hunky yet oh-so-intelligent university professor specializing in sound waves. He and an old colleague, weapons expert Sergei “Serge” Leveque played by Tcheky Karyo (the French dude from The Patriot), are called upon by the government when people start dying as a result of strange phenomena. Luckily for the people of the earth, it doesn’t take Keyes very long to figure out that the earth’s iron core has stopped spinning and that — Surprise! — everyone will be dead in a year. The various causes of death range from baking in the sun once the earth’s electro-magnetic field collapses, to being struck by lightning in storms powerful enough to destroy the Coliseum in Rome. Don’t worry about the all the scientific stuff in the movie though; the filmmakers make it dumbed down enough for your average gifted five-year-old to understand.
Apparently having viewed Armageddon a few too many times, government officials seek out a rag-tag team of scientists and experts from various fields to execute their plan of releasing five nuclear warheads into the core of the earth to restart the iron flow. Is there anything nuclear weapons can’t do?
Conveniently, Delroy Lindo’s character Dr. Edward Brazleton has developed a material that can break the laws of thermodynamics as well as a laser drill powerful enough to dig down a couple thousand miles into the earth’s core. Is that kind of top-secret independent research even legal? No matter. Soon enough, Keyes, Serge and Brazelton are slated to man the ship on its maiden voyage underground. A professor, a mad scientist and a weapons expert would be nowhere without a couple of astronauts to actually fly the contraption and a fame-seeking scientist with his head up his own derrière, and that’s where Hilary Swank, Bruce Greenwood and Stanley Tucci’s characters come in. Rounding out the group are DJ Qualls, star of such groundbreaking films as The New Guy and Road Trip, playing “Rat,” a computer hacking wiz kid whose main purpose is to conceal the mission from the public by toying with internet servers, and Alfre Woodard as the main woman at ground control.