Movie Review by Neil Ryan
Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, D J Qualls
Director: Jon Amiel
Is this the film for you? Well, yes – if you want absolute formulaic structure and adherence to all accepted norms of no-brainer blockbusters. If you want your characters to be dyed-in-the-wool stereotypes. If you live for utterly unoriginal scripts and desperately want to avoid having to think in any way, shape or form for the duration of the film. If you are moved by the predictable deaths of obviously expendable (e.g. of ethnic origin) supporting cast members. If you want a bog-standard burgeoning romance between the only two young and attractive members of the cast (with a gratuitous shirtless five minutes from the hunky male lead thrown in). If you want to witness the shameless appropriation of other film’s by now over-familiar ideas (curse you INDEPENDENCE DAY, and your “wouldn’t it be mind-blowing to explode world famous constructs” whimsy). If you want a guarantee that not one scene, not one line of dialogue, will be in any way original or unexpected. If you get sweaty palms at the prospect of slightly suspect CGI enhanced effects. If you truly crave all of the above from a film where you will know absolutely everything of consequence that will happen before it actually does, then please spend money and see THE CORE.
It is a hugely improbable sci-fi with lots of shouting of meaningless formulae and nonsense theories to cover the impossible-to-explain bits. None of which matters because all you need to know is: world’s going to end; motley cross-section of individuals band together; world gets saved in highly unlikely fashion.
As is the way with such films it is so very trite and undemanding that it actually reduces the viewer to a bland stupor whereby I was almost prepared to give it a 3 stars out of 6 rating simply for not being good or interesting enough to allow me to care sufficiently to dislike it (see what I mean about the nonsense theories covering the impossible-to-explain bits). But no… must… be… strong….
