The Core (2003) Dir: Jon Amiel
- Ridley Coote
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
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The disaster genre does not typically produce the best films ever made, but they are often pretty fun. It was this that I was looking for when I chose to watch this Jon Amiel directed end-of-the-world thriller. It doesn't have the best reviews, but, again, films like this often don't, so that didn't really bother me too much. As long as the film was semi-competent, I was sure I'd enjoy it.
The first thing I have to point out is just how awful this film looked. It had to be one of the worst looking disaster films I've ever seen. The CGI was abysmal, even by 2003 standards. I felt like I was watching a cheap straight-to-DVD film from the late nineties, which, I guess, is not too far from the unfortunate truth.
The story was as ridiculous as it was nonsensical, and frustrated me on a number of occasions. I realise it's a fictional story, but, considering it was set in the real world so-to-speak, the film was scientifically a joke. There's suspending disbelief and then there's downright absurdity. My annoyance was only exacerbated by the film having the most useless crew of characters ever.
The cast had some fairly recognisable names, but none of them particularly covered themselves in glory. Aaron Eckhart lacked any sort of charisma in his leading role, and was totally out-performed by his co-star Stanley Tucci, despite his performance not exactly being vintage either. Tucci did at least stand out a little bit though, which Eckhart did not.
Hilary Swank tried and failed to make her character interesting; her character's writing was as bland as tap water. The likes of Delroy Lindo, Tchéky Karyo, DJ Qualls, Richard Jenkins, and Bruce Greenwood, all tried and failed to produce something of note from their trope-ridden, utterly dull characters. It really was a torrid affair.
Overall, this film was just not it. I've seen some bad disaster movies, but this one might just take the cake. It was written horrendously, it looked terrible, and, worst of all, it was incredibly boring. The film did almost nothing well, and even then, those occasionally good moments were drowned out by the waves of mediocrity that followed them. For me, there is simply no shying away from the feeling that this is a truly awful film.
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