20 movies: The Core (2003)

Posted by Bill Wren

It’s summer. Surely that calls for a “popcorn” movie? I suggest The Core (2003), a “world facing imminent destruction that only a well chosen quirky few can save it from,” kind of movie.

You don’t look to disaster movies for credibility. A disaster movie that takes itself too seriously … now that is a genuine disaster. They’re suppose to be fun and you are suppose to watch them with your brain turned off. When they are well made, they are fun. And there’s a great sense of relief in turning off the mental works every now and again.

The Core doesn’t have the best special effects but neither does it have the worst. It does, however, have some very good actors and while movies like this aren’t famous for great dialogue or character delineation, the actors here manage to bring something more to an otherwise two-dimensional script.

In other words, I like this movie. Sue me. :)

The Core
directed by Jon Amiel

Simply put, The Core is a guilty pleasure. I watch a disaster movie like this and think, “This is junk. I shouldn’t like it.”

But I do. Sometimes junk is exactly what you want. And when you’re in that mood, nothing fills the bill better than well-made junk.

And that is what The Core is: well-made junk.

The movie starts with the world going wonky. People with pacemakers suddenly drop dead and for no apparent reason. In Trafalgar Square, birds go mad, swirl wildly, fly into people and buildings, and die.

Called in my the U.S. government, a brilliant university professor (Aaron Eckhart) goes, “Hmmm.” He divines that the earth’s electromagnetic (EM) field is going all to hell. After some pondering, it’s discovered the Earth’s core has stopped spinning (made of two layers — inner solid, outer liquid — the movement of the inner is what creates the EM field, we’re told).

What to do? As it turns out, the answer is to travel to the core and jump start the laval ring with nuclear bombs. (Seems obvious, right?)

Scene from The Core (2003).The plausibility of any of this is irrelevant. Movies of this kind are not about reality. They are essentially fantasies, science fantasies, and we’re expected not to question too much. It’s part of the bargain you make when you sit down with this kind of a film.

And that’s okay. You don’t watch these movies for the credibility of the extrapolations. You watch them for the thrill, the special effects, the suspense.

The Core delivers on all of these, though the special effects are … well, not top of the line. I think the movie works because it is well-paced. It seldom lets up; once you’re strapped in to your chair, agreed to the suspension of disbelief, you’re there for the duration. The g-force of the pace keeps you in your seat.

But The Core also works because it gets such good performances from a well-chosen cast.

In this kind of movie, the characters are all caricatures. There is not a great deal of depth to any of them. But with a good cast they flesh out and transcend their two-dimensional quality and become compelling.

As the DVD features reveal (a “Making of” featurette) the director, Jon Amiel, was focused on the characters. He wanted to make a popcorn disaster movie but with more character emphasis than normally associated with these kinds of movies.

It’s not surprising from Amiel, given his background. As this part of his IMDb bio says, “After studies in English literature, Jon Amiel graduated from Cambridge University and ran the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company, which often toured the USA. He became the Hampstead Theatre Company’s literary manager and began directing there, relocating to the Royal Shakespeare Company.”

Yes, I can see why there is a focus on performance. For example, Bruce Greenwood gets what might be a thankless role as Commander Richard Iverson, the stereotype of the all-American good guy, a tremendously dull role. But Greenwood is so good in it, so compelling and credible, the character becomes interesting and you sort of wish he had been the one playing the President in Independence Day. (On the other hand, he’s such a good actor we probably shouldn’t wish such bad lines on him.)

Scene from The Core (2003).Hilary Swank also plays her part perfectly and again in what might have been a pretty colourless role. Once more, the all-American hero is what is called for, the good guy (or gal). Yet she manages to enunciate certain nuances to give the character a depth it might not otherwise have.

Of course, this isn’t to say the movie is a character study – far from it. But in this kind of a film, great performances add a dimension to the film that it otherwise would not have had and make it much more engaging.

The movie also boasts two of my favourite actors, both of whom give wonderful performances as eccentrics of a kind: Delroy Lindo as a desert-living, oddball scientist and Stanley Tucci as the other great American scientist, celebrated and feted wherever he goes, and who has the misfortune of being an enormous, self-centred ass. Both Lindo and Tucci add tremendously to the film.

Like any guilty pleasure, The Core is the kind of movie you feel a little embarrassed liking. But it’s unashamed junk and revels in its quality as such. Like movies such as Anaconda and Independence Day, it is simply a fun ride.

Who cares if it makes sense?

The Core (trailer)


How do you make movies about nice people?

Posted by Bill Wren

Having been the really big little movie of a year or so ago, Juno (2007) hardly needs another review and so, other than to say I liked it a lot and consider it one of the better movies of the last few years, I’m not going to review it.

But I’d like to muse a while on something Juno does that I think is very difficult to do and very uncommon. It’s a movie about nice people. In fact, to the best of my recollection, everyone in the movie is a nice person. How do you make a movie about a nice guy (or gal)? And how do you make one where every character is a nice person?

Bad guy roles are often the ones actors (and directors) like to get a hold of: it’s much more interesting and, I suspect, easier to play. There’s more to work with because there is more to explore, or so it seems. Not to take anything away from Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight, but there are more ways into and more avenues to examine in a character like that as opposed to, for example, Victor Navorkski (Tom Hanks) in The Terminal.

So I have a fascination with movies that feature “nice guys” – at least, those where I think the movies, and particularly the roles, work. For example and comparison, look at one of the nice guy roles in a movie like The Core (2003), Bruce Greenwood as Cmdr. Robert Iverson. It’s about as colourless and bland as you could imagine. Yet with few, if any, opportunities, Greenwood makes him one of the more interesting and compelling characters in the movie. No, it’s not a huge role – the character is a minor one.

Now look at the thankless role Bill Pullman has as President of the United States in Independence Day (1996). In that case, the role is equally bland, there is just as little to work with and what ends up on screen is bland. In both cases the “nice guy” is supposed to be interesting because he’s heroic – and that’s just about all. Yet Greenwood manages, somehow, to find some shading to make his character a bit more than cardboard.

In most movies, nice guy heroes are pretty one dimensional. What goes on around them is what engages, if it engages at all, and often what surrounds them and grabs us is the bad guy, or at least the troubled character. Heroes are often, in these cases, “troubled” – they have some character flaw because, well, they’re darned boring otherwise (see Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard.

How, then, do movies like Juno or The Terminal manage to make good stories that feature nice people?

For one thing, they are romantic comedies. In those movies, while there may be a “bad guy” kind of character – a spouse, significant other, a boss etc. – the movie’s drama isn’t the conflict with “the bad guy” but situational, between two nice people. We want the conflict resolved so the two of them can get together.

But it seems to me that when a movie that features nice people works best it is almost always ensemble work. Yes, one or two characters are the focus, but the movie is hugely dependent on the characters surrounding them – almost always other nice people. (Think of those classic Hollywood movies like The Philadelphia Story or My Man Godfrey or Sabrina.)

As much as Ellen Page as Juno is the focus of Juno, and as good as her performance is, the movie is nothing without the ensemble – Paulie, Juno’s parents, the adopting couple, Juno’s friends. And they all share in common, with Juno, “niceness” and (for lack of a better word), quirkiness.

While we refer to it as quirkiness, however, is it really? I suppose so but, in the movies that work, it’s also character – there are reasons for the quirky behaviour. I can’t imagine anyone, anywhere not having distinct characteristics without being a blank slate.

Everyone we know has characteristics like this. Usually, the closer we are to someone – a friend, a family member – the more aware we are of their unique characteristics. It’s often what we love about them (and what we find annoying, at the same time). In movies, however, they are sometimes emphasized, or at least focused upon, because they lend themselves to humour and more importantly to character.

In a movie like The Station Agent (2003), it’s a small ensemble – just three, really. But that’s what makes the movie work – three nice people and each distinguished by their unique characteristics.

In a certain sense, you could say the successful portrayal of niceness is always (as far as I know) communal. While there are characters that are the film’s focus, it’s the community that supports them and the community – the ensemble – we’re drawn to, and this communal aspect is something romantic comedies do very, very well.

And it’s all so nice.