The 2003 film The Core gets a bad rep.
It’s commonly cited as one of the worst sci-fi movies ever, and not just by Reddit filmbros; professional scientists have piled on, too. Ann Merchant from the National Academy of Sciences described The Core as “the worst example of what Hollywood does to science.” Hundreds of scientists were polled to rank sci-fi movies, and The Core was at the bottom. Actor Dustin Hoffman mentioned this movie by name when he lobbied for greater scientific accuracy in film, forming the Science and Entertainment Exchange.
Here’s the premise: geology professor Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) finds a pattern in a series of strange disasters worldwide, deducing that Earth’s core has stopped moving. This crisis will end all life on the planet within a few months, unless a crack team of experts can tunnel to the core and detonate a few nukes to get it moving again.
You know, maybe the scientific community has a point.
The Core has been plagued by thinkpieces for more than twenty years. Film critics, even the ones who enjoy the movie, call it a mess. It’s a B-movie. It’s schlock. It’s sooooo dumb!
— But it sure is a great time!
Despite emphatic criticism of its premise and execution, The Core is a competent disaster flick, ticking all the right boxes for the genre. It’s a perennial cable TV favorite, and something of a comfort movie for me. I’ve found that there’s a lot to love here when you dig in (har har).
Besides, as YouTuber CinemaWins says, “Liking things is more fun than not liking things.”
The disaster movie genre is one of my favorites. These films remind us of the fragility of normalcy and permit us to wallow in our own glorious destruction, seeing the timeless icons of our culture in new ways as they are dramatically ripped apart. The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, and the White House are frequent targets of the mayhem because they symbolize life as we know it. While human life is fleeting, our icons are made to last. Their erasure is a dark omen: for things to fail this badly, millions must have been crushed along the way. Imagining THE END is an interesting exercise.
Disaster movies also invite us to fantasize about human ingenuity. The disaster is almost always averted in the end, a remnant of humanity saved. If most disaster flicks are to be believed, we can accomplish anything with a committed team of the right people.
It’s a comforting thought; even when things look bleakest, there must be someone out there working on a solution. We just need to wait for them to pull through. That faith in humanity helps us get through the smaller, daily disasters that dominate our news cycle.
In that spirit, The Core puts a special emphasis on the people saving the world, their interpersonal dynamics, and their insecurities. Additionally, it carefully inserts moments of destruction that contribute to the larger message of the movie, instead of giving in to the temptation of excess.
Like all disaster movies, The Core opens on a totally normal day and immediately starts to upend expectations. A young executive is pumped to give a lifechanging sales pitch, but instead falls over in the middle of the conference room, dead. Just as his career was gaining momentum, it’s cut off. As the camera pans across the city, dozens of similar stories have played out. An unforeseeable magnetic pulse has blinked dozens of people out of existence in an instant — anyone with a pacemaker, as Josh deduces.
The next prelude involves a family with a small child in Trafalgar Square, suddenly immersed in death as thousands of birds kamikaze into infrastructure all around them. At the beginning of the scene, the child doesn’t know about death. By the end, he’s well acquainted.
These two scenes make a point. Humans are young, full of potential and naivete. If our heroes fail, that’s all going to be prematurely ripped away. Beyond the science talk and models, which more explicitly lay out the stakes, the early disaster scenes provoke a primal human fear: “We’re too young to die.”
The third prelude is a scene about human ingenuity. Magnetic fluctuations cause a descending space shuttle to veer wildly off course into downtown Los Angeles, and only the bravery and skill of the pilots, Commander Robert Iverson (Bruce Greenwood) and Major Rebecca “Beck” Childs (Hilary Swank), can save the day, culminating in a rough landing in the LA River.
Beck’s quick thinking calls to mind the later, real life incident in 2009, when Captain Sully Sullenberger landed a plane safely in the Hudson River after both engines failed, saving all 155 people aboard. (I like to imagine that Sully got the idea from The Core.)
Through extraordinary acts of heroism, humans can navigate unprecedented circumstances and avert disaster.
The crew of the mission are the best part of the movie. The established relationships within the crew of six (neatly paired off) are generally believable and enjoyable as each actor gives an earnest performance.
Iverson is Beck’s friend and mentor, with a rapport that supposedly goes back years — though we never get to see much of it on screen, making theirs the weakest relationship. Despite a nice moment when Iverson credits Beck for her leadership during the shuttle crash, the movie doesn’t seem all that interested in giving him a distinct personality, since he is the first to die. When it comes to portraying the character, though, Greenwood is as reliable as ever. Truly one of the all-time great “Hey! It’s that guy!” actors.
Josh and weapons expert Serge (Tchéky Karyo), a dedicated family man, have worked together in the past and remain on good terms, excited to collaborate once again. They greet each other with a hug and speak like old friends. It’s cute.
Geophysicist Dr. Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci) and engineer Dr. Edward “Braz” Brazzelton (Delroy Lindo) have the most complex and interesting relationship. They were friends and partners until Zimsky stole Braz’s work, gaining prestige and exiling Braz to the desert to work alone. Braz’s resentment has built up over the years, and Zimsky’s relentless arrogance continues to test his patience. Zimsky maintains that he did nothing wrong, and their tension is palpable throughout the film.
After Braz’s introduction, the sci-fi worldbuilding is stepped up a notch. Braz has synthesized a new element, “unobtanium,” which will form the indestructible hull of Virgil, the subway-esque ship that will tunnel them to the core. As the pressure and heat ramp up, Virgil will only grow tougher. Laser beams and ultrasonic waves fire from the nose of the ship, drilling them effortlessly through the crust and mantle. After decades of work, Virgil is still conceptual, but a quick injection of federal funding gets Virgil built in just three months.
As a setting, Virgil forces the crew into close quarters, hot, stressed, and frustrated. It forces conflict and tests the crew’s limits each time its own are tested — and found wanting. Several times, unexpected obstacles tear at Virgil, resulting in the death of several crewmembers.
These scenes recall the classic Journey to the Center of the Earth, where the core of the planet turns out to be an active, exciting place, full of sights that are equal parts awe-inducing and perilous. When our heroes find themselves in a miles-wide geode containing a glittering amethyst canyon, it feels momentous — a memorable sci-fi setpiece full of suspense. The ship’s “windshield” — actually a real-time MRI readout on a windshield-shaped screen at the front of the cockpit — sells the journey and serves as a constant reminder that our crew is in uncharted territory.
Besides the “terranauts” who journey to the center of the earth, mission control includes Stickley (Alfre Woodard), the “woman in the chair” who relays communications to the team, and Rat (DJ Qualls), a prolific hacker who keeps the mission secret by “hacking the internet.” As the movie progresses, Stickley and Rat are the terranauts’ most ardent supporters. They resist attempts by the military to declare mission failure and try DESTINI, a government-funded seismic machine that may have wrecked the planet in the first place. This time, if DESTINI fires, Virgil will be destroyed, and it’s unclear what the consequences will be for Earth.
The whole team wrestles with feelings of inadequacy, except perhaps Zimsky, who has a conceited “Do you know who I am?” vibe from minute one. As crew members are picked off one by one throughout the dangerous journey, the ensemble’s performances are anything but passive. The movie takes a second to breathe after every death, ensuring that each loss is felt and grieved.
Even Zimsky, the embodiment of hubris, is changed by the journey. He not only starts forming human relationships again, but comes up with the plan that ultimately saves the mission. Miles underground, narrating into his tape recorder to save an idea for his later memoir, Zimsky describes a central theme of the movie: “For here, in the great infinite unknowable, Man can get to know the most important thing of all: himself.”
One of the most poignant moments comes after the death of Iverson, which spotlights Beck’s insecurity. While she is a perfectionist and overachiever — she’s never met a challenge that she couldn’t overcome — saving the entire world feels too big, especially without her mentor to guide her. She’s having trouble coping.
Serge offers her his own insightful perspective: “I came here to save my wife and my two children. Seven billion lives… it’s too much. I just hope I’m smart enough and brave enough to save three.”
This line pays off quickly. The next death is Serge’s, caused by Beck’s judgment call to eject the damaged compartment he’s trapped in. If she doesn’t, the rest of the crew will die. Afterwards, Josh confronts Beck, shoving Serge’s cherished family photo into her face as he accuses her of playing God:
BECK: Serge died so we could complete our job.
JOSH: [sarcastically] Oh, that’s right: the job of saving the world.
BECK: Not the whole world, Josh! …Just three of them.
Beck has taken the lesson to heart. She has found her focus and is no longer afraid to act with conviction. The rest of the remaining crew must follow suit.
From that point, the movie becomes intimate and personal, more focused on the crew and less on the destruction above. Around this point in the runtime, deadly microwaves leave San Francisco in ruin and extreme weather ravages Rome, just to scratch the destructive itch the genre calls for. The real action is below, though.
In another touching, passion-filled moment, Braz suits up, preparing to sacrifice himself to save the mission. “Virgil belongs to me, and I will not let her fail,” he says. “If you want to know what’s worth dying for: this ship. Building it instead of imagining it. If Virgil needs more blood, it will be my blood.”
Just before he goes, Zimsky stops him. For the first time, Zimsky addresses Braz as a friend and expresses regret over their feud. Zimsky’s final line to Braz says so much: “You’re right, it is your ship. But I wish to God it had been ours.” They reconcile without another word.
It’s these little moments between the crew, especially surrounding death, that make the movie so enjoyable. Exploring the unknown, this extraordinary group of people see wonders, experience tragedy, and endure the pressure of an entire planet resting on their shoulders.
Despite these strengths, The Core was a box office failure, earning just $73 million worldwide on a $60 million budget. An overwhelming majority of both critics and moviegoers rate the film negatively; most place it into the same “so bad, it’s good” category as Sharknado and Troll 2.
Critic Roger Ebert gave The Core a good-natured ribbing, expressing an “unreasonable affection” for the film. “The Core is not exactly good, but it knows what a movie is. It has energy and daring and isn’t afraid to make fun of itself.”
Stanley Tucci in particular is clearly having fun as Zimsky, responsible for some of the film’s funniest and most quotable lines. The movie is full of wry humor and characters are always willing to hang a lampshade on the movie’s more conspicuous artistic liberties. Screenwriter John Rogers has experience with stand-up, and his timing comes through in the script.
Critic Kenneth Turan, writing for the Los Angeles Times, shared Ebert’s perspective, recognizing the commitment The Core makes to the conventions of its genre. “There is something endearing about the old-fashioned earnestness of this disaster movie,” he wrote, “complete with flashing numbers, beaucoup scientific jargon, and dollops of portentous ‘I think you should check this out’ dialogue.”
Yes! He gets it! Turan concludes, “If The Core finally has to be classified as a mess, it is an enjoyable one if you’re in a throwback mood.”
Not everyone was so forgiving. Emory University physics professor Sidney Perkowitz helped found the previously mentioned Science and Entertainment Exchange, which lobbied for better scientific accuracy in film. He blamed The Core’s poor performance on its poor science.
“It is not unreasonable for a sci-fi film to take some creative liberties with scientific fact,” Perkowitz stated. “The Core, however, plays so fast and loose with the truth that it becomes difficult to keep track of all of its mistakes.”
Perkowitz went on to say that he allows sci-fi movies “one major transgression of the laws of physics.” He worked on guidelines for Hollywood that would “confine scriptwriters to plotlines that embrace the suspension of disbelief but stop short of demanding it in every scene.”
While I sympathize with Perkowitz’s desire to advance scientific literacy, and appreciate how important the suspension of disbelief can be, I don’t think this sounds like a very fun way to make — or watch — movies. Plenty of beloved sci-fi media take huge liberties with physics and tell a great story anyway.
While it’s not likely to go down in history as a classic, I think that The Core is a wonderful story. The rules of the plot are laid out: the problem with the planet is explained in simple terms and every character considers the proposed solution reasonable. Before the plot takes off, the movie demonstrates how all of the sci-fi technologies that make up the ship function. It’s open about the limitations of both the tools in play and our knowledge of Earth’s interior. All of these factors aid in the suspension of disbelief so we can just enjoy the journey.
Rogers, the screenwriter — who also created Leverage and the Saturday morning cartoon classic Jackie Chan Adventures — happens to have a degree in physics from McGill University, one of the top schools in Canada, so it’s interesting to see him react to criticisms of his science. In an irate response, he wondered, “Why do I bother?”
Rogers claimed he spent three years fighting to make the science in the script more accurate, pushing back against studio executives’ more outlandish demands. “I love sci-fi,” he wrote. “Sci-fi has suffered too many bad-science movies. It’s my responsibility to my fellow sci-fi fans to make sure the science is as close as I can get it.”
He pointed out the fans’ and critics’ hypocrisy when they choose to dismiss a movie based on bad science: “No problem with warp drive, alien species who can’t open a kitchen door, or a living liquid planet-god. But an improbable equation for semi-solid fluid dynamics, you’re the logic cops.”
Item by item, Rogers responded to complaints about The Core’s science, revealing how he got the ideas for most of the technology in the film from real world innovations. He even revealed that his original screenplay described the core’s rotation as “altered” before executives demanded he replace it with “stopped,” meaning that the most surface-level critique of the film was actually the result of studio interference.
Rogers finally concluded, “There’s a scrum of guys out here in LaLa Land who love genre films. We’re fighting every day to try to make halfway decent stuff. Sure, sometimes we don’t get there, but we work our asses off behind the scenes, trying like hell, always remembering the fellow fanboys out there — and unlike some people, we’re actually trying to make stuff.”
Honestly, I think Rogers has a point. Making movies is frequently more business than art. In many, many cases, the artist’s original vision is mutated again and again before the final product is released, and not every employed creative is given the opportunity to push back.
To be fair, the scientific criticisms of The Core aren’t necessarily directed at the screenwriter. They could be read as a rebuke of the Hollywood system, which prioritizes the naked ambition and profit motive of noncreatives over artistic expression. General audiences see movies as a holistic product and rarely give much regard to the hundreds of professional creatives who each helped to shape it. While anyone can do bad work, it’s prudent to remember that creatives are in a tug-of-war with the businessmen who sign the checks.
The recent Warner Brothers controversy involving CEO David Zaslav exemplifies this struggle. Since he was given his position, Zaslav has been more executioner than executive, eliminating access to some of his studio’s highest-rated, most innovative properties in an attempt to cut back on paying the artists residuals. Twice in the last year, WB has trashed completed films: Batwoman and, more recently, Coyote vs. Acme — the latter of which was written by an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and is, by all accounts, a good film. To take advantage of a tax loophole, the studio will refuse to release the film to any platform or theater and instead delete the work hundreds of creatives spent years contributing.
Screenwriters like Rogers are forced to work in this cynical, callous system to make a living at their craft — and to provide fans with new and exciting sci-fi stories. It’s not they who struggle with reality; it’s the executives and their warped priorities.
The creatives who made The Core succeeded in creating something fun, interesting, and memorable. It is, as Ebert wrote, a film “which those with too little taste think they have too much taste to enjoy.”
It’s fun to roast The Core. It’s more fun to watch it.
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