The Core (2003)

[Thalamus Debris 3]

Many things make this movie a winner, but first and most important of all is DJ Qualls. His character’s name is Rat. He uses the wrapper from a stick of gum to give Aaron Eckhart’s cell phone, “free long distance… forever.” His character literally hacks the planet in this movie—literally. Fuck you Zero Cool. An actual line from the movie is, “You want me to hack the planet? He wants me to hack the planet... Ok, if I decide to do this, I'll need an unlimited supply of Xena tapes and Hotpockets.” I think Rat then spends the rest of the movie surrounded by government drones who watch as he masturbates to a loop of the scene where Xena and Gabrielle les out in an ancient Jacuzzi; Rat stopping occasionally to limply caress the keyboard in an attempt to hack the planet with greasy, jizz covered hands.

They also build a machine to travel to the center of the earth so that they can restart the earth’s core which has mysteriously stopped spinning. Seriously, no one knows why… it’s a total fucking mystery. Stanley Tucci did it. Anyway, without the core spinning the earth doesn’t have a magnetic field because science. This causes all kinds of terrible things like people with pace makers dropping dead, total planetary destruction, and birds…

Imagine yourself in Trafalgar Square as thousands of birds descend from the sky attacking panes of glass and double decker buses alike. We follow the harrowing journey of a young handheld camera as it makes its way through the frightened throngs of tourists in search of safety. There’s also a kid who I’m pretty sure is a ghost with a pronounced sniffle.

The Core is also lazy. I have two examples, the first of which is a dialog/callback debacle. At some point Aaron “Apocalypse Boy” Eckhart and French Scientist have a bit of touching dialog about their motivations for being involved in such a crazy situation.

French Scientist: I came here to save my wife and my two children and... seven billion lives... it's too much. I just hope I'm, I'm smart enough and brave enough to save three.

Later, after French Scientist dies, Swank and Eckhart share this exchange while they both unconvincingly lose their shit:

Swank: Serge died so we could complete our job.

Apocalypse Boy: [sarcastically] Oh, that's right, the job of saving the world

Swank: Not the whole world Josh! Just three of them.

I understand the intent of this. I get call backs. What I don’t understand is how they could not find some way to make it so, “Just three of them,” doesn’t grammatically refer to the word, “world.” Unless I’m missing some kind of Mormon through line in The Core, this is just bad writing. Easy fix:

Swank: Serge died so we could complete our job.

Apocalypse Boy: [sarcastically] Oh, that's right, the job of saving seven billion people

Swank: Not all of them Josh! Just three of them.

Sure, it’s a bit more dialog, but it makes sense and I’m not left debating the cosmological ramifications of a multiple earth theory.

The second bit of lazy comes in the form of a peach. There’s a scene where Apocalypse Boy uses a peach to demonstrate what happens to the earth without its electromagnetic field. He lights a peach on fire flamethrower style with a can of hair spray and a lighter. Fire is cool. Hold on though, if you check the trivia on IMDB page it says that they didn't have a peach on set. They couldn't find a peach so they made an apple look like a peach—movie magic! Look, I’m no filmmaker, but I know they plan scenes well in advance of shooting, so how does no one remember the peach? I really want to know everything about this story. I want to hear about the guy who got fired for not having the peach. I want to meet the guy who suggested they turn an apple into a peach. Was he the same guy who found the apple? I want to meet the person who turned the apple into the peach. Had they ever done such a thing before? Perhaps turning a grapefruit into a cantaloupe?

Did I mention they use nuclear bombs to restart the core? Yeah, so they use nuclear bombs to restart the core. This movie is insane. Please, please cover The Core in an episode. I’ve seen it at least 30 times since 2003 and I would love it if you would validate my obsession.

[inactiveuser501 168]

I could spend FOREVER talking about the Birdemic scene and the silent acting of that child. I really need to rewatch this soon.

[wyldride 285]

Peaches don't look like peaches on screen, so they had to tape a bunch of cats to an apple. #citationneeded

[thestray 361]

I'm usually not a pedant when it comes to the science of science fiction, because you gotta bend the science to your will to have the fiction. But this is one of the movies where it's so nonsensical it's impossible to suspend your disbelief. There's no way any type of research was done for this movie.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

It's "Armageddon" ON Earth!

 

I remember that this movie got bumped back because of the NASA shuttle that got destroyed re-entering Earth's atmosphere shortly before it was supposed to come out, which sort of mirrored a scene in the film, and strangely enough I don't even see that mentioned on it's Wikipedia page. It was one of those things, when working at a theater, where you know to yank the trailers and posters before you even get the e-mails from higher up to do so. I think when the movie tanked though, they actually let it fail on it's own merits and not because "Moviegoers weren't ready to see something that so closely resembled real life tragedy" or whatever bullshit line they use to defend movies that were doomed anyway.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

So, this piece of shit is on American Movie CLASSICS right now, and to say that the effects don't hold up, when they weren't even up to snuff in 2003, is an understatement. I just caught the scene where Rome is experiencing an electromagnetic storm or something, and the lightning effects look straight out of "Krull".

[jarrycanada 2483]

Now there is a movie they should review on HDGTM. "Krull"..

 

Mind you they could do a full show just on the making of the movie.

"

"

[seanotron 2307]

This is a pretty fun bad movie. The Twooch is campin' it up something fierce, and as others have mentioned the 'science' of the movie is completely ludicrous (or possibly Ludacris). The fact that they are constantly trying to explain the nonsense of the plot just makes it funnier. It's like episodes of Star Trek Voyager where they'd just string together a series of science-y words and hope you bought it.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

They really do need to do this movie, its the quintessential bad disaster movie and its much more fun to watch than stuff like Dantes Peak or Volcano

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

Also my favorite scene is where Tcheky Karyo dies and Aaron Eckhart loses his shit on Hilary Swank only to forgive her like 2 seconds later in the next shot.

[angryrose 494]

I love getting out in the middle of the Earth and not be crushed to death because I have an awesome suit that protects me from science. This movie, do this movie, oh my God.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

In the first scenes of this movie, Hilary Swank manages to land a fucking ROCKETSHIP in the L.A. Basin. And after pulling off the landing that saves everyones lives on the ship, not too mention the countless people she saved by not just crashing into the city, is promptly told by Richard Jenkins that her career is fucking donezo.

 

This movie is special.

[pogues 18]

This is a must. It has just enough what the fuck moments and absurd dialogue to put it in the same category as Deep Blue Sea. Just you know without the sharks. But with the Tucc so that's a win.

 

Everything about this movie screams HDTGM. Plus I would love to hear June try and decipher one of the silliest plots yet.

[IMAHUGEHDTGMFAN 1837]

I simply love the scene at the end of the movie where D.J. Qualls goes full Edward Snowden AT A INTERNET CAFÉ !

 

I laugh everytime I see it...

 

Please... Do this movie!

[figarojones 4]

By far, this is my favorite disaster film of all time; only 2012 has come close to the sheer ridiculousness of it, and even that pales in comparison. It just has such amazing pseudo-science: the center of the Earth stopping because of earthquake machines, a metal that somehow converts the heat of magma into electricity, using nukes to get the core of the earth spinning again, etc.

 

As Jason would say, This. Movie. Is. BONKERS. But it is also insanely entertaining.

 

PLEASE DO THIS FILM!

[Joven 373]

I simply love the scene at the end of the movie where D.J. Qualls goes full Edward Snowden AT A INTERNET CAFÉ !

 

I laugh everytime I see it...

 

Please... Do this movie!

 

My favorite part about that is that he hijacks a bunch of computers at an internet cafe because hes a badass hacker...then when it shows what hes doing, he's literally just emailing a word document to some reporters.

 

Also, if during the birdemic scene in London, you were thinking "weird, it kinda looked like one of those birds was a fish." Thats because it was...

 

 

(As usual for a movie with a good rifftrax for it, I've seen this quite a bit, thanks Quiptracks - http://www.theootl.c...&products_id=11 )

[Moonguts 14]

 

It's like Armageddon but in reverse.

 

The Core is a 2003 American science fiction disaster film. It concerns a team that has to drill to the center of the Earth and set off a series of nuclear explosions in order to restart the rotation of the Earth's core. The film was directed by Jon Amiel, and starred Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, Tchéky Karyo, DJ Qualls, Bruce Greenwoodand Alfre Woodard.

 

"In a poll of hundreds of scientists about bad science fiction films, The Core was voted the worst."

 

*Currently on Netflix.

[Lando 2019]

It has been suggested

 

http://forum.earwolf.com/topic/12973-the-core-2003

 

These four letter movies are tough to search

 

More like the Crabcore amirite?

 

 

 

I just wanted to make a -core joke.

[socialtyler 0]

This movie needs to be done.

 

Stanley Tucci, schmacting up a storm.

DJ Qualls hacks the planet.

Hillary Swank figured the L over D max.

Aaron Eckhart sees high frequency static discharge.

Delroy Lindo builds a ship of unobtainium in 3 months.

 

Actual line:

Col. Robert Iverson: Forgive me, but, you know I'm not the expert here, but what if the core is thicker or thinner? I mean, what if it's not what you think it is? Isn't that going to affect the way the explosions are...

Dr. Conrad Zimsky: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and what if the core is made of cheese?

 

 

Somehow has a 41% on Rotten Tomatoes which puts it pretty high compared to other HDTGM movies.

Head writer's main IMDB pic is a selfie and produced Coneheads, co-writer is responsible for Catwoman.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

Stanley Tucci's wig alone necessitates this movie being talked about.

[Smelsela 5]

This movie is an absolute must for the podcast. It is totally bananas and makes no sense and has such terrible "science" that it is laugh out loud funny. If I remember correctly, they make up a new element called "unobtainium" which is indestructible under high pressure and converts heat to electrical energy and they make their ship out of that to explain how they're supposedly able to tunnel down to the core of the Earth. Then at one point, they just get out of the ship and start walking around. It is so, so bad!

 

From IMDB:

 

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.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

The science in this movie was so bad, Dustin Hoffman started a foundation to help scientists and filmmakers collaborate so that films like this have a better grasp on the science featured in their movies. 

Neil Degrasse Tyson who loves tearing apart the garbage science in movies has said that it's pointless for him to break down what the movie got wrong because EVERYTHING was wrong. 

 

[Bae of Pigs 15]

This is still one of the more enjoyable bad movies I've seen. It's gleefully ascientific. All the problems this team faces may as well be solved by magic. The introduction of the giant laser drill is such a Soft-Sci power move, it cracked me up. It would have been no less ridiculous if they were led to the core by a horde of orcs.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

If Aaron Eckhart pulled out a magical sword and tossed it into the core in order to make it stabilize, it would have been as scientifically sound as anything else that happened in this movie. 

I cant find the scene immediately after but literally two seconds after this outburst he walks back into the room and forgives her with no further issues. To the point that later on when they have to sacrifice Delroy Lindo, they do it together in a moment that insanely enough is supposed to be a nice romantic moment in between the two of them as they push a button that will spill hot lava all over a close friend to them. 

 

 

[NitsujRelis 8]

This movie was a fun one despite how bad it was.