The film was released on March 28, 2003, by Paramount Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $74 million worldwide with a production budget of $85 million.
Plot
Thirty-two people mysteriously drop dead, leading the U.S. government to call in scientists Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes and Dr. Serge Leveque. They determine that each person had a pacemaker and that some sort of electrical interference caused them to malfunction. Other incidents involving the Earth's magnetic field lead Josh and Dr. Conrad Zimsky to the conclusion that the Earth's inner core has stopped rotating. Unless it is restarted, the magnetic field will continue to degrade and eventually collapse, exposing the Earth to devastating solar radiation.
The U.S. government devises a plan to detonate nuclear weapons within the Earth's outer core to restart the rotation. They bring on Zimsky's former partner, Dr. Ed "Braz" Brazzelton, to build a vessel to deliver the bombs. The vessel, named Virgil, is made of a material he developed called unobtainium and can withstand extreme pressure. NASA pilots Commander Robert Iverson and Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs are enlisted to pilot Virgil, while computer hacker Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch is brought on to avoid general panic by keeping news of further disasters and Virgil's mission off the internet.
Virgil is launched through the Marianas Trench and enters the crust using a laser-based drilling array. After entering the mantle, Virgil drills and falls into a gigantic empty geode, damaging the drilling array. While working to free the vessel from the outside, Iverson is killed by a falling shard. They escape before the geode is flooded with magma. As Virgil passes through a field of diamond formations, one of them breaches the compartment housing the weapons-control module. Serge sacrifices himself to get the team the information and tools they need to detonate the nukes before the compartment is sealed and jettisoned.
The team reaches the outer core and realizes that it is much less dense than previously believed, meaning their nuclear payload is too small for their current plan. Zimsky shares this with operation leader Lieutenant General Thomas Purcell and reveals to the team his work on DESTINI, a U.S. tectonic weapon that likely stopped the core's rotation. Purcell orders them to return as he plans to try and use DESTINI to restart the core, though Josh argues that doing so could permanently destabilize it and cause massive natural disasters. The team elects to continue over Zimsky and Purcell's objections.
A burst of ultraviolet rays destroys the Golden Gate Bridge and causes power outages along the West Coast. This leads Purcell to order DESTINI be fired, fearing further power outages won't leave enough power to do so. Josh communicates with Rat about DESTINI and the later is able to prevent Purcell from firing DESTINI by redirecting power away from the weapon.
The team devises a plan to place a bomb in each of Virgil's remaining compartments, jettison them, and stagger the detonations, using constructive wave interference to increase the force of the bombs. Braz sacrifices himself, going into the uncooled crawlspace of the ship and activating the control so they can manually detach compartments.
As they set the charges, Josh and Zimsky realize that the last bomb needs more explosive power than the others. The bomb in the second-to-last compartment falls on Zimsky's leg and he is unable to escape before the compartment is ejected. Josh uses the nuclear fuel rods from Virgil's reactor to provide the additional energy for the final detonation. The main compartment is left powerless as the bombs begin to detonate, killing Zimsky, and successfully restarting the core's rotation.
Josh recalls that unobtainium can convert heat and pressure to energy and the two restore Virgil's power in time to ride the pressure wave from the explosions out of the core. Eventually they breach the ocean floor near Hawaii, but lose power due to the cold water. Purcell and the U.S. navy search for them until Rat realizes that the Virgil crew are using low-power ultrasound to draw whales to them, leading to Josh and Beck being rescued.
Shortly afterward, Rat uploads information about Virgil, its team and DESTINI to the internet, leading to worldwide news reports and tributes to the lost team members.
Cast
Aaron Eckhart as Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes, a professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago who designs the navigation system for Virgil and is assigned as head of the project.
Hilary Swank as Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs, USAF, an astronaut who distinguished herself during an emergency crash landing of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in Los Angeles, California, a result of the magnetic instability.
Delroy Lindo as Dr. Edward "Braz" Brazzelton, the designer of Virgil and the ultrasonic lasers.
Stanley Tucci as Dr. Conrad Zimsky, Earth specialist and designer of Project DESTINI, based in Alaska.
Tcheky Karyo as Dr. Serge Leveque, nuclear weapons specialist, and colleague and friend of Dr. Keyes.
D. J. Qualls as Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch, a computer hacker who is widely regarded as the best in the world, crippled the FBI's database, recruited to control the flow of information on the Internet to prevent public panic.
The original plan for the shuttle landing scene had been for Endeavour to attempt a landing at Los Angeles International Airport with the shuttle coming to a halt on the nearby beaches. However, due to the events of September 11, 2001, the crew was not allowed to film at LAX. The scene was therefore rewritten with Endeavour landing in the L.A. River.
Reception
The Core garnered mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 39% of 160 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.3/10.The website's consensus reads: "A B-movie with its tongue planted firmly in cheek, The Core is so unintentionally (intentionally?) bad that it's a hoot."[6] On Metacritic, another aggregation website, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100 based on reviews from 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[7] In his review, Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four and said "I have such an unreasonable affection for this movie, indeed, that it is only by slapping myself alongside the head and drinking black coffee that I can restrain myself from recommending it."[8]
The film grossed $31.1 million in United States theaters, and another $43.0 million overseas for a total worldwide gross of $74.1 million[1] against a production budget of $85 million.[1]
Several reviews cited the numerous scientific inaccuracies in the film.[9][10][11]Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times said: "The brazen silliness of The Core is becalming and inauthentic, like taking a bath in nondairy coffee creamer. The Earth core's inability to turn is mirrored in the cast's inability to give the picture any spin."[12]Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times was a little more forgiving, saying: "If The Core finally has to be classified as a mess, it is an enjoyable one if you're in a throwback mood. After all, a film that comes up with a rare metal called unobtainium can't be dismissed out of hand."[13]
In response to criticism of his screenplay's lack of scientific realism, screenwriter John Rogers responded that he tried to make the science accurate, but expended three years fighting "to get rid of the ... dinosaurs, magma-walks in 'space-suits', bullshit-sci-crap sources for the Earth's crisis, and a windshield for the ship Virgil."[14]
On March 30, 2009, it was reported that Dustin Hoffman was leading a campaign to get more real science into science-fiction movies. Hoffman is on the advisory board of the Science & Entertainment Exchange, an initiative of the United States National Academy of Sciences, intended to foster collaborations between scientists and entertainment industry professionals in order to minimize inaccurate representations of science and technology such as those found in The Core.[15]
In a poll of hundreds of scientists about bad science fiction films, The Core was voted the worst.[15]
On February 21, 2010, The Guardian ran an article about American professor Sidney Perkowitz's proposals to curb bad science in science fiction movies. In the article, Perkowitz is said to have hated The Core. "If you violate [the coherent rules of science] you are in trouble. The chances are that the public will pick it up and that is what matters to Hollywood. The Core did not make money because people understood the science was so out to lunch".[16]
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