The Core (2003)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Dr. Joshua Keyes	Aaron Eckhart	½
Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs	Hilary Swank
Dr. Edward "Braz" Brazzelton	Delroy Lindo
Dr. Conrad Zimsky	Stanley Tucci	½
Dr. Serge Leveque	Tchéky Karyo	½
Commander Robert "Bob" Iverson	Bruce Greenwood	½
Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch	DJ Qualls	½
Flight Commander Dr. Talma Stickley	Alfre Woodard
Lieutenant General Thomas Purcell	Richard Jenkins	½

Review

The Core fits nicely into the sci-fi disaster subgenre made visible (if not exactly popular) by films such as Independence Day and Armageddon during the 1990s. And as with the latter, The Core brings an almost absurd combination of scientific aspiration and creativity on the one hand and complete scientific folly on the other. It's as if the script was written by people with a decent background in the sciences, but who couldn't resist the urge to smoke quite a bit of weed during the creative process.

The result is a totally engaging and totally preposterous disaster film. Despite a generous running time, the filmmakers are able to keep the film constantly moving in a high tempo, thus not allowing us to dwell too long on the many illogicalities in the story. Because although the script is stupid, it is also jampacked and weirdly self-assured, and director Jon Amiel is able to convert it into a crudely suspenseful film. Most of the cast plays it straight, something which creates a few arguably unintentionally amusing situations. Many of these are saved by Stanley Tucci's jaunty performance as Dr. Zimsky. Keep your ears open for some funky sounds from composer Christopher Young, especially during the space shuttle landing scene.