The Core is a 2003 science fiction disaster film loosely based on the novel Core by Paul Preuss. It concerns a team that has to drill to the center of the Earth and set off a series of nuclear explosions in order to restart the rotation of Earth's core. The film was directed by Jon Amiel, and starred Aaron Eckhart, Delroy Lindo, Tchéky Karyo, Hilary Swank, DJ Qualls, Bruce Greenwood, and Stanley Tucci.
Plot
When 32 people in Boston mysteriously drop dead, scientists Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) and Serge Leveque are called in to investigate, and they discover they all had pacemakers which obviously ceased to work. A while later, flocks of pigeons in London's Trafalgar Square lose their ability to navigate, crashing into buildings, people and cars, and the Space Shuttle Endeavour is forced to crash-land because of unknown failure. After these events, scientists, led by Keyes and Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), discover that the Earth's molten core is slowly coming to a stop; without its rotation, the electromagnetic field will disappear, exposing the surface to the unfiltered solar radiation that will incinerate anything or anyone exposed to it. Keyes and Zimsky are charged to find a way to restart the core, which will require travelling deep into the Earth and setting off nuclear charges to induce rotational force.
Keyes and Zimsky seek the help of Leveque, a weapons expert, and Ed "Braz" Brazzelton (Delroy Lindo). Brazzelton not only reveals a means of drilling through the Earth at high speeds using a series of lasers, but also has devised a material "unobtainium" which is capable of withstanding the pressures deep inside the planet as well as generating energy from them. Keyes himself works to create a means to visualize their path through rock structures via MRI-like technology. To avoid creating a worldwide panic, an expert hacker, Theodore "Rat" Donald Finch (DJ Qualls), is found by the government and is brought to monitor the Internet and erase any rumors about the potential fate of the planet. However, there is a hint that the army is hiding the real reason of the upcoming catastrophe.
The team constructs a snake-like ship named Virgil made up of several compartments that will be launched over the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the deepest such area on Earth. Keyes, Zimsky, Leveque, and Brazzelton are joined by NASA astronauts Commander Robert Iverson (Bruce Greenwood) and Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs (Hilary Swank), who will pilot the ship. The launch goes successfully and the team finds their equipment is working to expectations as they begin their descent. After successful descent to 700 miles depth, they run into a snag when they breach a gigantic geode-like structure, damaging the laser drilling device. Iverson and Zimsky find out that they are in fact inside a cobalt cocoon full of amethyst. During the repairs, Iverson is killed by falling crystal shards, so Beck will now have to pilot the ship to the Earth's core. They repair the ship and escape just before the geode collapses and lava pours in.
As they dive further, a large diamond field breaches the hull of the last compartment where Leveque is preparing the nuclear devices for activation; he sacrifices himself to make sure that Keyes has the launch codes as the compartment, no longer able to withstand the pressure, is crushed. When they finally breach the molten core, they perform a series of calculations and find that their original plan would fail to restart the core due to unexpected physical property differences. The team calculates that they can still restart the core by decoupling each compartment of Virgil at precise positions, timing the nuclear devices in each to go off to obtain the best force they can impart to the core. However, in order to separate the individual compartments, one member will have to step into the open area at the front of Virgil, which is exposed directly to the molten core, and likely will not survive. Brazzelton offers to do so and sacrifices himself to the mission.
Meanwhile, on the surface, the public become aware of problems after a lightning super storm appears over Rome and destroys the Colosseum and a patch of unfiltered sunlight over San Francisco melts the Golden Gate Bridge. Rat is unable to stop the release of the news, but learns of a device called "D.E.S.T.I.N.I." (Deep Earth Seismic Trigger Initiative), the news of which he relays to Keyes. Keyes learns that the DESTINI project was an attempt to propagate earthquakes through Earth's core as a weapon, but instead was the cause for stopping its rotation, and that Zimsky was a critical figure behind its design. Zimsky reveals that the government will attempt to use the device again to try to restart the core, which could have disastrous results.
Keyes gets Rat to disable the power to the device while they attempt to plot the proper locations for the detonations. At this point they start to detach each compartment. While Keyes and Zimsky activate the bombs, they realize that the blast won't be effective enough so they decide to restart the timers. While they do so, Zimsky is trapped in one of the compartments and has to be left behind by Keyes and Childs. Before the compartment with Zimsky is disconnected, he reveals to Keyes that the explosion can be effective only if he uses the Virgil's fuel rod to increase the blast power of the last bomb. While the timer for the nuclear explosions ticks down, the two find they are within the blast radius of the devices, and are forced to rig the ship, using the power generated by the unobtainium, to move themselves out of the way in time.
As they speed out of the core, the series of nuclear explosions goes off, successfully restarting the core's rotation. Keyes and Childs are able to safely make it to the ocean floor in Virgil but, without heat, they are unable to get to the surface. However, their position is found by the military by tracking whalesong singing over their ship. Shortly after they are recovered, Rat, through Keyes' directive, releases full information of Project DESTINI and of their mission to the Internet, which reveals the truth to all, and ensures that Iverson, Serge, Braz, and Zimsky are not forgotten, but rather lauded as heroes.
Cast and characters
- Aaron Eckhart as Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes, a scientist who designs the navigation system for Virgil and is assigned as head of the project
- Hilary Swank as Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs, USAF, an astronaut who distinguished herself during an emergency crash landing of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in Los Angeles, California
- Delroy Lindo as Dr. Edward "Braz" Brazzelton, the designer of Virgil and the ultrasonic laser
- Stanley Tucci as Dr. Conrad Zimsky, Earth specialist and designer of Project D.E.S.T.I.N.I.
- Tchéky Karyo as Dr. Serge Leveque, nuclear weapons specialist
- Bruce Greenwood as Commander Robert "Bob" Iverson, USN, Major Childs' commander and mentor
- DJ Qualls as Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch, a computer hacker who is widely regarded as the best in the world, crippled the FBI's database, recruited to control the flow of information on the Internet to prevent public panic
- Alfre Woodard as Flight Commander Dr. Talma "Stick" Stickley, the mission commander for NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour and Virgil
- Richard Jenkins as Lieutenant General Thomas Purcell: A Lieutenant General in the United States army and leader of the operation
Critical reaction
The film received 42% positive reviews out of 159 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10 at the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Several reviews cited the numerous scientific inaccuracies in the film. The film was a box office bomb, making less than half of its production budget back during its time in US theaters.
On March 30 2009 it was reported that Dustin Hoffman was leading a campaign to get more real science into science-fiction movies. Hoffman is on the advisory board of the Science & Entertainment Exchange, an initiative of the National Academy of Sciences, intended to foster collaborations between scientists and entertainment industry professionals in order to minimize inaccurate representations of science and technology such as those found in The Core.
In a poll of hundreds of scientists about bad science fiction films, The Core was voted the worst.[1]
References
- ^ Actor Dustin Hoffman lobbies for more reality in science-fiction movies, News.com.au
External links
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Films directed by Jon Amiel |
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Queen of Hearts (1989)
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