Film
Bristol Science Film Festival: The Core
- Director
- Jon Amiel
- Certificate
- 12A
- Running Time
- 135 mins
Yay! Two-hours-plus of B-listers battling to save the planet from occasionally wobbly special effects that herald one of the most risible threats to mankind in movie history.
If Edgar Rice Burroughs had been a scriptwriter for Jerry Bruckheimer, their meeting of the minds might have conjured up Armageddon at the Earth’s Core. Jon Amiel opts for a more concise title but leaves intact the delicious stupidity of the concept. It’s sometime real soon and weird shit is starting to happen. Folks with pacemakers are dropping dead, pigeons are going apeshit in Trafalgar Square, and a space shuttle navigated by feisty filly Hilary Swank is obliged to make a bumpy landing in a built-up area. Acting on behalf of the world, as usual, the US military summons dishevelled university prof. Aaron Eckhart to explain What the Fuck’s Going On. This he does in the form of a Geology 101 lecture, using a peach and an aerosol spray to reveal to the mortified assembled brass that the Earth’s core has stopped spinning and civilisation will collapse in, oh, about three months. Turns out the only way to kick start it again is to tunnel down and nuke it back into action. As luck would have it, fellow boffin Delroy Lindo is working on just such a tunnelling device, making excellent use of that handy indestructible element Unobtanium – aka Mumbojumbrium.
With pompous geophysicist Stanley Tucci in tow, the brave yet bickering team set the controls for the heart of the Earth, knowing perfectly well that they’re about to be sacrificed in strict order of cast importance. It all drags on a bit once our ‘terranaut’ heroes hit the crust, not least because the ropy underground FX sequences resemble that ancient computer game Asteroids. D.J. Qualls’ turn as a computer nerd is painfully feeble, though Eckhart makes a more convincing academic here than he did in Possession and Swank helps supply the mandatory dash of romance. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry . . . but – let’s face it – mostly you’ll laugh, sometimes even in the right places.
The Bristol Science Film Festival attempts to upstage the Bristol Bad Film Club with this screening of the 2003 guilty pleasure. On hand to pick it apart in the Bad Science Film Panel are:
Chris Dunford (Sustainability Engagement Manager, At-Bristol)
Katie Cooper (Stakeholder Engagement Manager at Rising Ape Collective)
Ti Singh (Co-founder of Bristol Bad Film Club)
Advance tickets are available here.
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