The Core

Yesterday it was Halloween. I didn't have any candy so when some kids came to my door I gave them heroin instead. They're dead now.

In the spirit of Halloween, I'm going to talk about disaster movies, because that makes fucking sense. Actually I saw this one movie which is so awful I just have to rant about it. Last night I watched The Core and I nearly died of how bad it was. It was so bad I wanted the ozone layer to disappear and for everyone on the planet to die. That's how bad it was.

The Core is a disaster flick whose scenario is simple enough: the core stops rotating which causes all kinds of natural disasters. So a group of scientists and astronauts pilot some sort of drill-ship into the centre of the Earth to detonate nuclear warheads and hopefully restart the planet's engine. Little do they know that the government secretly has a back-up plan called D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. (or some such A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.) which, should their quest fail, will kill them and everyone else in the world. How do they know this? Because IT CAUSED THE WHOLE CORE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. More on this later.

The government in this movie is one big colossal fucking moron. They're all Americans, because Americans are always the ones tasked with saving the planet. Since we don't actually find out about the Destiny project until the final act, it seems at first like the problem is a natural phenomenon. When a university lecturer (played by Aaron Eckhart, handsome and young like all teachers in movies) discovers what's going on, they immediately become concerned as all hell and summon him to explain his findings. And I kid you not, he uses FRUIT to explain to the PEOPLE WHO RUN AMERICA how the Earth's core works. They're all sitting there like fucking primary schoolers, with furrowed brows and looks of confusion; "Are you saying the Earth is big delicious nectarine?". Then Aaron borrows some air freshener off a scientist and uses a lighter to explain what the Sun will do to the Earth without its "protective atmospheric electromagnetic layer". When everyone in the room suddenly gasps in astonishment I laughed so hard my face fell off. Do these people seriously need a practical demonstration to understand that the Sun is hot? That would be like if I created a model of a volcano and poured baking soda and vinegar into it and the government was all like "Holy shit! Now we know that volcanoes erupt! Thanks Mr. Expert!" What's even more disturbingly stupid is how Aaron is the only person who figured out the problem. No other scientist on planet Earth was able to look at all the bizarre disasters and think maybe there's an upcoming apocalypse.

That reminds me, the disaster scenes are retarded. In the opening scene a flock of pigeons goes apeshit and starts killing people. In a montage reminiscent of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, you see them dive bombing cars, breaking windows and pecking peoples' eyes out. Then all of a sudden they leave for no reason. Half an hour later there's some kind of freak electrical storm, capable of singling out specific landmarks such as the Colosseum and causing them to actually explode by pummelling them with lightning. The last one, however,  makes both of these scenes seem like brilliant filmmaking. The Sun melts the Golden Gate bridge, blows out the tyres of hundreds of vehicles and gives one guy a bad case of sunburn. Seriously, the Sun is melting iron and yet someone gets sunburn. What. The. Fuck.

While all this horrifying stuff is happening our team of heroes is busy cracking wise and training. Most of their preparation is actually spent making sure their group contains every cliche character in the book. You've got the handsome hero (Aaron); the hot chick (it's Hilary Swank so it's a bit subjective); the annoying jerk who disagrees with everything (Stanley Tucci); the decoy leader who is actually just there so he can die first and allow the handsome hero to be dramatically thrust into the leadership role (a guy who played the exact same character in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek); the black guy (a black guy) and some other guy who's just there to add another death to the film.

Having wasted 50 minutes doing nothing they finally jump in the black guy's giant laser-shooting drill and begin their journey to the centre of the earth. The whole thing reminds me of another movie. I can't quite remember what it's called. You know that one about the journey to the centre of the Earth? Anyway a couple of not particularly sad deaths later they reach the core and realize their original plan to reignite it, which they spent about two seconds coming up with, will not work. As it turns out, the core is a lot thicker than they had originally estimated. This is what happens when you hire four scientists to save the world instead of -  oh I don't know - FUCKING ALL OF THEM. THE PLANET IS ABOUT TO BE BURNED TO A CRISP JUST LIKE THE FRUIT AND YOU HIRE A UNIVERSITY LECTURER, TWO REALLY SHIT SCIENTISTS WHO AREN'T QUALIFIED TO WORK IN A FUCKING MCDONALDS AND A BLACK GUY WHO LIVES BY HIMSELF IN THE DESERT TO SAVE IT. FUCKING WHHHAAATTTTTTTTTTT??????

At this point America decides to use Destiny as a backup plan and then it turns out this whole problem was caused by Destiny in the first place. Hey guys, you know how last time we set off this giant laser it broke the planet? How about let's do it again and just maybe everything will be fixed this time.

Okay! What a smart idea!

Aaron enlists the help of a hacker he barely knows to risk a lifetime in prison stalling the Destiny project. This is one of those movie hackers who can move their hands over a keyboard really fast for a minute and suddenly have access to the FBI's most secret shit. He manages to divert all the electricity being used to power Destiny towards some other source and the government doesn't suspect him at all, despite the fact that he's looking around shadily and despite the fact that they specifically hired him to hack into things.

I'm getting really sick of talking about this movie so I'll wrap things up. They find another way to restart the core. There are some really, really terrible CGI explosions, Aaron Eckhart gets half his face burned off and leaves to fight Batman. Hilary Swank becomes a female boxer and dies. The end.

It's an awful movie. Don't watch it.