Review of The Core
Year: 2003 Reviewer: Chris Docker
OK, the one-line summary doesn't tell you much but the quote "All this brainpower is beginning to smell like burning batteries" is too good to miss. Another quote from the movie: 'Hang on - this isn't going to be subtle' sums up the movie more accurately though.
This magma-churning budget-cgi spectacle is very average grade sci-fi, with the 'science' element sophisticated enough to pull in most twelve year old audiences or sci-fi fans / disaster movie fans who just want o rest the brain for a couple of hours. The 'world's' (i.e America's) top scientists come together on a journey to the centre of the earth to kick-start the it's molten core - after a failed cold war experiment has knocked it off kilter and so threatened the world. All the roles are fairly two-dimensional - it has about as much depth as a long episode of Startrek but without the cult enjoyment. Hilary Swank is quite good, if only to see her in a totally different character to her Oscar-winning performance in Boys Don't Cry (in Core she is a top NASA pilot, near genius, a capable captain, and also voluptuous, sensitive, feminine) but the part hardly stretches her abilities except to give her more experience is mainstream fare as a Ripley-with-sex-appeal.
Rating: 6/10
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