The Core... Good God don't disasters hit the non-tourist areas
Added 11/5/2009
The Core: 5 out of 10: Disaster movies always seem to do better when the disaster is local in scope. A city threatened by avalanche, a tower threatened by an inferno, a Poseidon threatened by an adventure, that kind of thing. Earth killer movies are always a harder road.
You have your 4 standard horseman of the earth disaster; nuclear war, space invaders, plagues (esp. those that create zombies), and meteors. Lately earth killing movies have gotten creative and lets face it stupid, global warming (The Day after Tomorrow), President George W Bush (Fahrenheit 911) and now The Core with it's well I'm still not sure what broke.
The core of the earth stopped spinning (not the earth itself mind you) which is causing the electromagnetic field to dissipate. Okay, that sounds serious. So that would cause what exactly? Apparently the movie wasn't all that sure so we get scenes of some the lamest and implausible disasters ever. Lets put two under the scientific microphone shall we.
One involves birds going all Hitchcock in London due to their inability to navigate using the magnetic field. Okay that may effect the birds ability to fly south (Oh my god the pigeons they're going east!), but even the Mr. Magoo of the avian world wouldn't start flying into statues and buses.
In another of the all too short montages of disaster a lightning storm destroys the Roman Coliseum. I'm not sure which are more unlikely, lighting striking relatively short rock structure, or the granite exploding when it does. Lightning, last time I checked, was attracted to metal.
But what would you expect from a movie that puts a giant windshield in a rock-drilling machine (Made with that magic metal Unobtainium). Keep in mind I've only scratched the surface of the silliness.
Acting wise Stanley Tucci is a joy, Hillary Swank still kind of looks like a guy, and everyone else is forgettable. The Core is enjoyable in that bad 50's sci-fi kind of way. But they needed more (and more plausible) disasters, and much less well everything else.
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So bad it's awesome!
Added 10/30/2009
The Bottom Line:
An utterly terrible film about a bunch of astronauts and scientists who have to dive down to the core of the earth--which is in danger of ceasing to spin and thus destroying life as we know it through means that the audience never understands at all--The Core is awful on pretty much every level (writing, acting, sense-making, etc.) and is so stupid it almost (but not quite) comes around full circle and becomes smart again; however, the film manages to reach that fabled plateau of "so bad they're good" throughly enjoyable trash movies and you should definitely rent it if you want a laugh.
2/4
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Fun, but Riddled with Cliche
Added 9/27/2009
Core / B0000AKCKN
*Spoilers*
I tend to enjoy a good disaster movie, and I don't even mind the soft science that almost inevitably accompanies them - most truly exciting threats (like, say, the earth rapidly slowing its rotation) pretty much aren't plausible no matter how you slice it, so just make up some technobabble and I'll go with it.
"The Core" is fun enough for a first viewing, but usually what will keep me coming back is the characters in a disaster movie. Fun, interesting, and amusing characters are good; clichéd, annoying, irritating characters are not. Let's just get right down to the aspect that really turned me off to this movie, and that is Hillary Swank, or rather how this movie treats her. She starts off as a clichéd Renaissance Woman who can do anything and everything (one character even asks her if there's anything she can't do and she replies that there's nothing she knows of), including land spacecraft by eyesight (and mad math skills) on narrow, improvised landing strips. As part of her "character development" (and I use the term loosely) she walks up to newly invented and malfunctioning things and jiggles wires and - viola - they work. I would find this annoying enough, but what *really* gets on my nerves is that the movie thinks this is a bad thing, and a huge amount of time is spent beating her about the head for thinking she knows too much. I hate to pull the 'sexism' card, but compared to all the actual jerks in the movie who *don't* get a dressing-down talk, it's just flat-out irritating.
The other major thing that turns me off to "The Core" is that the characters die off so predictably that it feels like they have numbers on the backs of their jerseys. I realize that the Alpha Nerd and the Obligatory Girl have to survive to the end (it's Hollywood Law), but would it be so much to ask that the other characters not line up and take a number on the movie wheel-of-death? One death in particular is so ridiculous and unnecessary that the only "excuse" offered is that the laughably bad ship design was due to the rushed building period, which is particularly funny because you'd think with *every Nobel prize winner ever* on the job, SOMEONE would have pointed out the rather glaring design flaw. Then again, maybe the problem is that pesky "no Nobel prize for mathematicians" thing - oh, the delicious irony.
In all seriousness, I liked the plot of "The Core" just fine, I just wish that there'd been a bit more polish on the script and pacing. There are a lot of genuinely scary moments and a lot of really funny lines, and if they'd just shaken out the clichés and put a little more originality into the movie, I think it couldn't be very good - as it is, it's pretty much standard disaster movie fare with nothing to really stand out as unique or interesting.
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Fun Movie
Added 8/18/2009
This movie was panned by the critics which immediately gave it credibility as good entertainment. Critics don't care if a movie is fun for the audience - they only care if it was a challenge for the actors. Hilary Swank wasn't going to win another academy award for this move but it was 10 times the fun to watch this movie then the movie she did win one for. Great special effects, Action, comibined with a science fiction theme and a great supporting cast make this a fun flick. The only downer was a lack of solid romance and humor. Those two ingredients would have put this movie over the top. If you like action science fiction - this is the movie for you.
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Getting Down to the Core !
Added 8/12/2009
One of my favorite movies !!!!
When it comes to saving planet earth we don't always need to travel into outter space.
A few of the smartest people & a couple of NASA pilots come together to built a ship designed to travel into the inner depths of earth to save the world from devastation.
The speacial effects are great & this movie will keep a person in their seat wondering what will happen next while traveling to the Core ... Go "Virgil" !
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The Core... Good God don't disasters hit the non-tourist areas
Added 11/5/2009
The Core: 5 out of 10: Disaster movies always seem to do better when the disaster is local in scope. A city threatened by avalanche, a tower threatened by an inferno, a Poseidon threatened by an adventure, that kind of thing. Earth killer movies are always a harder road.
You have your 4 standard horseman of the earth disaster; nuclear war, space invaders, plagues (esp. those that create zombies), and meteors. Lately earth killing movies have gotten creative and lets face it stupid, global warming (The Day after Tomorrow), President George W Bush (Fahrenheit 911) and now The Core with it's well I'm still not sure what broke.
The core of the earth stopped spinning (not the earth itself mind you) which is causing the electromagnetic field to dissipate. Okay, that sounds serious. So that would cause what exactly? Apparently the movie wasn't all that sure so we get scenes of some the lamest and implausible disasters ever. Lets put two under the scientific microphone shall we.
One involves birds going all Hitchcock in London due to their inability to navigate using the magnetic field. Okay that may effect the birds ability to fly south (Oh my god the pigeons they're going east!), but even the Mr. Magoo of the avian world wouldn't start flying into statues and buses.
In another of the all too short montages of disaster a lightning storm destroys the Roman Coliseum. I'm not sure which are more unlikely, lighting striking relatively short rock structure, or the granite exploding when it does. Lightning, last time I checked, was attracted to metal.
But what would you expect from a movie that puts a giant windshield in a rock-drilling machine (Made with that magic metal Unobtainium). Keep in mind I've only scratched the surface of the silliness.
Acting wise Stanley Tucci is a joy, Hillary Swank still kind of looks like a guy, and everyone else is forgettable. The Core is enjoyable in that bad 50's sci-fi kind of way. But they needed more (and more plausible) disasters, and much less well everything else.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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So bad it's awesome!
Added 10/30/2009
The Bottom Line:
An utterly terrible film about a bunch of astronauts and scientists who have to dive down to the core of the earth--which is in danger of ceasing to spin and thus destroying life as we know it through means that the audience never understands at all--The Core is awful on pretty much every level (writing, acting, sense-making, etc.) and is so stupid it almost (but not quite) comes around full circle and becomes smart again; however, the film manages to reach that fabled plateau of "so bad they're good" throughly enjoyable trash movies and you should definitely rent it if you want a laugh.
2/4
[...]
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Fun, but Riddled with Cliche
Added 9/27/2009
Core / B0000AKCKN
*Spoilers*
I tend to enjoy a good disaster movie, and I don't even mind the soft science that almost inevitably accompanies them - most truly exciting threats (like, say, the earth rapidly slowing its rotation) pretty much aren't plausible no matter how you slice it, so just make up some technobabble and I'll go with it.
"The Core" is fun enough for a first viewing, but usually what will keep me coming back is the characters in a disaster movie. Fun, interesting, and amusing characters are good; clichéd, annoying, irritating characters are not. Let's just get right down to the aspect that really turned me off to this movie, and that is Hillary Swank, or rather how this movie treats her. She starts off as a clichéd Renaissance Woman who can do anything and everything (one character even asks her if there's anything she can't do and she replies that there's nothing she knows of), including land spacecraft by eyesight (and mad math skills) on narrow, improvised landing strips. As part of her "character development" (and I use the term loosely) she walks up to newly invented and malfunctioning things and jiggles wires and - viola - they work. I would find this annoying enough, but what *really* gets on my nerves is that the movie thinks this is a bad thing, and a huge amount of time is spent beating her about the head for thinking she knows too much. I hate to pull the 'sexism' card, but compared to all the actual jerks in the movie who *don't* get a dressing-down talk, it's just flat-out irritating.
The other major thing that turns me off to "The Core" is that the characters die off so predictably that it feels like they have numbers on the backs of their jerseys. I realize that the Alpha Nerd and the Obligatory Girl have to survive to the end (it's Hollywood Law), but would it be so much to ask that the other characters not line up and take a number on the movie wheel-of-death? One death in particular is so ridiculous and unnecessary that the only "excuse" offered is that the laughably bad ship design was due to the rushed building period, which is particularly funny because you'd think with *every Nobel prize winner ever* on the job, SOMEONE would have pointed out the rather glaring design flaw. Then again, maybe the problem is that pesky "no Nobel prize for mathematicians" thing - oh, the delicious irony.
In all seriousness, I liked the plot of "The Core" just fine, I just wish that there'd been a bit more polish on the script and pacing. There are a lot of genuinely scary moments and a lot of really funny lines, and if they'd just shaken out the clichés and put a little more originality into the movie, I think it couldn't be very good - as it is, it's pretty much standard disaster movie fare with nothing to really stand out as unique or interesting.
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