The Core is a 2003 disaster movie starring one of the brothers of Thursday, Harvey Dent, in his most heroic role of his career as “Scientist” Dr. Josh Keys, who’s part of a crew that goes down to the center of the Earth to save the world. More on that later, first let’s focus on this all-star cast.
Pilots played by Hillary Swank and Bruce Greenwood. Swank’s role here is sandwiched between roles as Alaskan detective in Insomnia and her best role as a not quite over the hill boxer in Million Dollar Baby. Now Bruce Greenwood has appeared in nearly every genre of film, sprawling his 150+ screen/voice credits. This is the guy who was the original Captain of the Enterprise in J.J. Abrams Star Trek. Who’s also the idiot billionaire who believed in Asimov’s rules of Robotics. And of course the man who faked his death to put his wife in prison.
Legendary character actor Delroy Lindo developed the laser that cuts through the earth’s crust. This is a man who has been in countless films, either in small roles in an ensemble cast or just supporting roles. Here’s a few of his credits: Malcolm X, Get Shorty, Ransom, Da 5 Bloods, Clockers, The One, Domino, Sahara, Gone in 60 Seconds, Romeo Must Die, okay I’m out of breath. If you ever need a page of dialog to be said with conviction and swagger you call Delroy if Sam Jackson is too expensive.
Legendary Frenchman, Tchéky Karyo, also played a scientist friend of Harvey Dent named Serge. His best moments were a training exercise where they wrecked that left him in laughter (I love crazy bastards who love disaster) and the part [SCENE REDACTED], yeah it was epic.
Tchéky Karyo played the villain in Bad Boys, the French commander (maybe general, I should just stick to Frenchman) in The Patriot, Bob in La Femme Nikita. And finally the movie that’s the headline of everyone’s resume, Wing Commander. With a Hollywood run spanning the year 1995-2004, I always wonder who were the other European actors up for the role? Maybe Jurgen Prochnow of Judge Dredd and Das Boot or even the man in everything Stellan Skarsgard? There should be a list of which actors were considered for roles.
Playing A-Hole rockstar scientist is The Tucc, Stanley Tucci. I consider him as the best character actor of his generation. He has done everything and was great in each role. I won’t mention any of his roles but the guy’s amazing and I’ll let you explore his entire filmography yourself. I’ll leave these lines for you.
[Greenwood] Col. Robert Iverson : People. Doctors Zimsky and Keyes? You guys are our resident geophysicists, so what do you make of this?
[Tucci] Dr. Conrad Zimsky : The mantle is a chemical hodgepodge of, a, variety of elements...
[Lindo] Dr. Ed 'Braz' Brazzelton : Say it with me: "I don't know."
The Plot is well– let's try to avoid four letter words. The story is that the core of the Earth stopped spinning causing problems everywhere. The world sends our scientist down there to restart the core with nukes. There was a one minute one shot scene where camera pans as 30 people collapse and die due to their pacemakers failing. One in every 1,000 people has a pacemaker. Without a doubt, the science is clearly accurate, so don’t try to question it.
Reviews
davidmay says
“—the unlucky guy that has to walk through 9000 degrees temperature in a suit only designed to withstand 5000 degrees. He makes it to the duct and switches the lever? 9000 degrees is about 2-3 times the temperature of a nuclear bomb going off. I think the walls and floor of the corridor would have been glowing white with heat. Our man would have been vaporised, but lucky for him, only his converse pumps melted to get to the lever—”
davidmay you need to relax and go with it.
davidmay also says
“—not even going into the fact about how the core could stop spinning in the first place. Thanks for your time.”
Damnit davidmay.
evilasahobby Says:
“—does the right thing by hiring good actors to deliver terrible dialogue. The special effects are passable and there are plenty of unintentionally funny moments—A dumb film that is pretty forgettable, but the ride itself delivers everything you'd expect. Just remember to disengage your brain before watching!”
Conclusion
Like every disaster movie, characters die and wrenches are thrown to stop the plot, you’ve seen all the movies. The popular ones in the 70’s even the ones in the 90’s like: Dante's Peak, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Independence Day, and so forth. Honestly, I like these kind of movies and hope they don’t go away. I haven't see some of the more recent disaster films, I guess that leaves something to review in the future. The Core gets 3 Harvey Dents out of 5.
Why did you put scientist in quotations when describing Harvey's character??? He was a legit geophysicist!!