Question: What happens when you give some left-leaning, tree hugging Hollywood-types loads of cash to make an incredibly cheesy movie?
Answer: "The Core", another flick about global environmental annihilation.
There's a world of trouble afoot when the Earth's core inexplicably stops spinning, disrupting the planet's magnetic field. After all, it's the engine that drives the planet's electromagnetic field.
Nope, they sure don't build planets like they used to.
Enter Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart), egghead scientist and college professor with Hollywood-standard good looks.
"Even if we came up with a brilliant plan," he intones, "we just couldn't get there."
"Yes," retorts Saganesque celebrity-scientist Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), "but what if we could?"
Answer: We'd make a really bad movie about just such a scenario.
Meanwhile, all sorts of wacky earthly disasters are occurring.
People with pacemakers are dropping dead.
Birds are doing their level best to recreate scenes from a Hitchcock film.
The shuttle Endeavor's tracking system is thrown for a loop, and plucky navigator Major Rebecca "Beck" Keyes (Hilary Swank) saves the day by rerouting it to land in the Los Angeles storm canals. Unlike the last two shuttle disasters, no astronauts die because... well, because this is the movies.
Stone-busting lightning storms are doing to centuries-old Roman architecture what real estate developers have wanted to do for years. The accompanying massive electrical discharge is also making static shock a life-threatening problem.
Tears form in the Earth's electromagnetic field, letting massive amounts of UV rays in - melting cars, bridges, and people.
It's like something right out of the book, 'The Coming Global Superstorm'. Dang, I guess authors Art Bell and Whitley Strieber were right after all. I think we all owe them a big apology.
Luckily, for planet Earth, reclusive genius Ed "Braz" Brazzleton (Delroy Lindo) has been building a high-tech drilling machine for twenty-some odd years, just in case the Earth's core should ever go haywire. It seats six.
"Braz" refrains from saying, "I told you so!", and instead says he needs $15 billion to finish a prototype.
The U.S. guv'mint gives it to him. Good thing this end-of-the-world stuff didn't happen during the 'War with Iraq', or it might've been a different story.
"Sorry, Braz, we'd like to help, but all our funds have already been allocated to stopping a bigger threat to the world — Saddam Hussein. Maybe next quarter, check back with us then."
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments