Review

Review Date: 30-March-03
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Juicy

The Core (2003)

The leaves are just emerging and my calendar says March, but this weekend it felt like summertime — when kids are out of school, hot dogs are in fashion, the air smells like coconut, and movies like "The Core" arrive at your local multiplex to save you from the oppressive heat, if only for a couple of blissful, salt-and-sugar-filled hours. Yes, "The Core" is everything an escapist summer movie should be: loud and ludicrous, goofy and gung-ho, sappy and stuffed with special effects. And despite its oddly timed release (and its slightly-too-long run time), it still delivers a kick-back, leave-your-brain-at-the-door kind of pleasure.

There's nothing in this story of a crew of heroes traveling to the center of the Earth to save us all from armageddon that you wouldn't expect. You've got your scenes of global destruction (the Colosseum exploding, the Golden Gate Bridge melting), your grim military guy with a direct line to the President, your shot of the heroes walking in slo mo towards their destiny, a few tense scenes in command central of a secret government base, a slew of brainy but lovable scientists and geeks, a dash of romance, a touch of rivalry, a lot of lessons learned and sacrifices made, and the proper melting pot of men and women, blacks and whites, young and old (and a Frenchman to boot). What "The Core" also has which most movies in its genre do not is a group of truly talented actors, including Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank as the crew's young hotties, and Stanley Tucci and Delroy Lindo as its senior scientists. (Plus the much talked-about scene of a space shuttle making a crash landing, which is just plain cool.) Perhaps because of the actors' earnestness and professionalism (or because they talk a lot about pi and electromagnetic fields and the coefficient of R), they seem to rise above the sea of cheese, er, I mean molten lava at the movie's, I mean Earth's core, and they make you not only root for them but wish you were one of them — even it were only the 83-pound, ultra homely but terribly important computer nerd who hopes to save the world so that someday, maybe, he can get laid.

Copyright © 2003 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.