The Core (2003)

The only way to save Earth from catastrophe is to drill down to the core and set it spinning again.

Director:

Jon Amiel

Writers:

Cooper Layne, John Rogers

Stars:

Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Aaron Eckhart	...	Dr. Josh Keyes
Christopher Shyer	...	Dave Perry
Ray Galletti	...	Paul
Hilary Swank	...	Maj. Rebecca Childs
Delroy Lindo	...	Dr. Ed 'Braz' Brazzleton
Eileen Pedde	...	Lynne
Rekha Sharma	...	Danni (as Rékha Sharma)
Stanley Tucci	...	Dr. Conrad Zimsky
DJ Qualls	...	Theodore Donald 'Rat' Finch
Tom Scholte	...	Acker
Richard Jenkins	...	Gen. Thomas Purcell
Glenn Morshower	...	FBI Agent
Bruce Greenwood	...	Cmdr. Robert Iverson
Anthony Harrison	...	FBI Agent
Tchéky Karyo	...	Serge (as Tcheky Karyo)

Storyline

The Earth's core has stopped spinning. Disasters are appearing all over the world: Birds acting crazy, powerful thunderstorms, 32 people die within seconds of each other when their pacemakers quit working. Dr. Josh Keyes and his crew of five (total members: 6) go down to the center of the Earth to set off a nuclear device to make the Earth's core start spinning again or Mankind will perish.

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Plot Keywords:

earth | core | scientist | disaster | pacemaker | 

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Taglines:

The only way out is in

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi life/death situations and brief strong language

Details

Country:

USA Germany Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 March 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

Core

Filming Locations:

Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$60,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$449,988 (Australia) (13 June 2003)

Gross:

$3,592,088 (Japan) (4 July 2003)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, David Foster Productions, Munich Film Partners New Century & Company (MFP) Core Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

135 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of the scientific experts consulted for the making of the movie was Dr. David Stevenson of Caltech. After talking to the producers, he thought of a scientifically possible way to send an unmanned probe to the core. His idea was published in the prestigious science journal Nature on 15 May 2003.

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Goofs

While Rat is looking up Project DESTINI (Deep Earth Seismic Trigger INItiative), he types Project Destiny instead of using the proper acronym.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Dave Perry: [referring to his watch] It stopped.

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Crazy Credits

Outer Core Supervisor

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Connections

Referenced in Robot Chicken: The Core, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (2011)

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Soundtracks

"Echelon"
by Jared Leto
Performed by 30 Seconds to Mars
Courtesy of Immortal Records LLC/Virgin Records America, Inc.
Under license from EMI Film & TV Music

User Reviews

Worth a Dollar if You Have Two Hours to Kill

How can you tell when a director is bad? I mean, assuming the director is given $50 million or so, competent actors, and a halfway-decent script, what would the film look like if he/she REALLY didn't know what he/she was doing? I think that film would look a lot like "The Core."

From the preview stage, this movie was on my "might see it but not pay for it" list, so I just now caught it on cable. Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart will definitely have Oscars someday, and most of the other actors who make it on the ship are of similar caliber. The comic relief generally works ("I'm going to need Xena tapes and lots of Hot Pockets"), and the plot is no more ridiculous than, say, "The Day After Tomorrow" (though it is slightly LESS ridiculous-- at least this movie attempts to offer a cause for the problem, however unlikely).

I remember watching "Entrapment," another John Amiel film, and thinking it was, in a word, awful. The editing was off, the plot lumbered ahead only through the will of Sean Connery's accent and Catherine Zeta-Jones spandex-clad anatomy. Watching "The Core," Amiel has decided his mistake was pacing, and turns up the volume to eleven and full speed ahead, hoping the charisma of his actors covers his butt. In the second half of the film, this works fine. In the first half, it just shows his limitations as a director... poor special effects during the space shuttle landing that could easily have been fixed with model work or different camera angles; birds going crazy and smacking into buildings look exactly like someone tossed a dummy against a building, then the editor cut it as close as possible. Truly, this is a man at the helm who doesn't know what a good film is supposed to look like. I wonder what an Ed Wood movie would have looked like, if someone had given THAT guy $50 million?

Characters die with clockwork predictability, and my only problem with the resolution was the actors were TOO good. They play geniuses, the absolute best in their fields, so when the movie ends I wanted to spend more time with them, see what incredible problems, discoveries, adventures they had next. The movie itself is barely a D+, thanks to the actors, occasionally adequate special effects (which we will call simply "effects"), and a really great score to hold it all together. I'd buy the score (not the pop songs over the credits) before I'd watch the movie again, but it's a thumbs up effort for everyone who isn't Amiel. Worth a dollar if you have two hours to kill.