My Review of "The Core"

The Core is an early 2000's disaster movie. These were really big in the late 90's and early 2000's. I guess there was a lot of panic with Y2K that everyone ate these movies up. I know I'm becoming one of these suckers. This movie shows some of its age but it's still enjoyable if you don't take this movie too seriously.

This movie starts off with a ton of unexplainable deaths. A whole slew of people just keel over and die and they bring in a pair of scientists to figure out what happened to them. The main character Josh and his buddy Serge figure that they all died because they had pacemakers. The military thinks it's an attack but Josh convinces them otherwise.

Then we have a whole slew of birds flying all over in what was one of the most horrific and terror inducing scenes in the whole movie. I have a fear of birds so this scene really had me panicking. I won't forget this scene for a while.

A few other scenarios come up and Josh realizes that perhaps the Earth's core might be losing its rotation. In a huge panic he tries to spread the news. They eventually listen to him.

The movie will have a whole slew of convenient side stories to explain the other characters that will join him on his quest to get the Earth's core to rotate again. I know it's really weird premise to a movie and this plot really screams early 2000's writing.

People may give this movie flack for its unrealistic writing and plethora of unlikely unlikely scenarios but when I watched it I saw something different. I liked the fact that this movie is pretty simple and easy to follow despite the absurd technical jargon that they constantly use throughout the movie. It reminds me of a time of innocence in movies. They would make these absurd movies because they knew that these movies would get people into theater seats. This was when theater going was fun and a lot of people would go see these movies.

Today we see all of the problems with things. Yes the special effects look extremely dated by today's standards. They're almost laughably bad now but back in the day these were state of the art effects. I liked watching them and realizing that I would have been wowed back in 2003 when it first came out.

The filmmaker's understanding of technology is kind of laughably bad. You see a internet cafe called cyber cafe. They have a hacker that is super stereotypical of what you would expect in the early 2000s. He looks super nerdy and they ask him questions like if he could control the whole Internet. I love the symbols and prompts that they get on their computers while trying to hack into things. It's pretty funny looking back at their interpretation of how technology works.

Speaking of technology they create this massive digging machine that is supposed to handle thousands of pounds of pressure. It also has this crazy laser that can blast through mountains like a roadrunner vs. coyote cartoon. They make the military seem like this really bad organization but they wouldn't have thought of using this laser as a military weapon.

Then when they're close to the core they walk outside in these paper thin suits that are supposed to be able to withstand thousands of pounds of pressure and crazy heat resistant. It was all so laughably absurd you really have to watch it to believe it.

There's a lot of stars in this movie too. I don't really remember if these stars were big back in 2003 or if this was their big break into the movie industry but they all seem to have aged very well.

This is not to say that everything was bad. There was some fun perspectives on moral decisions. They talk about what's important in life and what you should do in the line of duty. Ultimately it's always a question of the value of a life versus the life of billions. I guess it's their closest connection with Star Trek.

Still a lot of things just fell into place so conveniently throughout the movie. Again it's somewhat comical how everything falls into place and certain things happen earlier in the movie that are obviously going to help them later on in the movie. It's pretty predictable because their clues are sometimes really absurd.

Overall, I was still able to enjoy this movie but in a different way. It was more funny than it was a serious movie for me. You have to watch this movie with this sense of humor to really enjoy it and there's a lot to enjoy. I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. It's a fun movie to watch if you're in a certain state of mind.