The Core

Several small, disparate incidents involving the Earth's magnetic field cause scientists led by geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes and scientists Dr. Serge Leveque and Dr. Conrad Zimsky to conclude that the Earth's molten core has stopped rotating. Unless it can be restarted, the field will collapse within months, exposing the surface to devastating solar radiation. The U.S. government backs a secret project to build a vessel that can drill to the core and release nuclear weapons to restart the rotation. They utilize the work of Dr. Ed "Braz" Brazzelton who has developed a material "Unobtainium" that can withstand and convert the pressures of the core into energy, as well as a laser-based high-speed drilling array. NASA pilots Commander Robert Iverson and Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs are enlisted to pilot the multi-compartment vessel Virgil, while computer hacker Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch is brought on to keep news of the pending disaster or the attempt to restart the core from the Internet.

Virgil is launched through the Marianas Trench and successfully makes its way through the crust. The team accidentally drills through a gigantic empty geode structure, damaging the lasers when it lands at its base. As they traverse outside the ship to free the vessel from the crystalline structures, the geode starts to flood with magma, and Iverson is impaled by a falling shard. The rest manage to return in time as Virgil continues its descent. Further down, they pass through a field of gigantic diamond formations, one which breaches the last compartment housing the detonation timers for the nuclear charges. Leveque sacrifices himself to make sure the others have the charges and launch codes before the compartment is crushed by the extreme pressure.

The team reaches the molten core and realize it is much less dense than previously thought, throwing off their calculations on restarting its motions. They communicate with the surface, where Lieutenant General Thomas Purcell, overseeing the operation, orders them to abandon the effort and return immediately as they plan to use a secondary protocol to restart the core. Finch secretly communicating with the Virgil team and learns that this secondary protocol is the top-secret project "DESTINI" (Deep Earth Seismic Trigger INItiative). Keyes finds that Zimsky was a lead scientist on DESTINI, which was intended to be used as a weapon by the U.S. but when it was first tested had caused the core's rotation to stop. Finch redirects power from DESTINI to prevent Purcell from activating it again, as Keyes fears it could destroy the Earth instead of restarting the core. Meanwhile, destructive events including a lightning storm hitting the Colosseum in Rome, Italy and a collapse of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco alert the world to the situation.

On Virgil, the remaining team come up with a plan to set an explosive in each of the remaining compartments, release them and time their detonations appropriately to trigger the core's rotation through a "ripple effect". Brazzelton sacrifices himself to engage the compartment detachment mechanism in the vessel's underbelly. As they set the charges, Keyes and Zimsky realize they need more explosive power than previously thought and in their race to adjust timings, Zimsky becomes trapped in a detached compartment. Keyes uses Virgil's nuclear power source to provide the additional energy for the final detonation. While it leaves the main compartment powerless and Keyes and Childs trapped, the other explosions do successfully restart the core's rotation. Keyes recalls that the unobtainium shell can convert the heat and pressure to energy, and the two wire the shell directly to their systems in time to power their systems and ride the pressure wave out of the core and up towards the surface through tectonic plates, eventually breaching into the floor of the ocean near Hawaii but having only minimal power, not enough to establish communications. The government searches for them, and Finch, tracking nearby whale sound, realizes the Virgil crew are using low-power ultrasound to draw whales nearby. Keyes and Childs are soon rescued.

In the aftermath, Finch uploads information about Virgil and its team and the classified information about DESTINI across the Internet, causing the world to revere the crew as heroes.

• Aaron Eckhart as Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes, a scientist and professor at the University of Chicago who designs the navigation system for Virgil and is assigned as head of the project.
• Hilary Swank as Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs, USAF, an astronaut who distinguished herself during an emergency crash landing of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in Los Angeles, California, a result of the magnetic instability.
• Delroy Lindo as Dr. Edward "Braz" Brazzelton, the designer of Virgil and the ultrasonic lasers.
• Stanley Tucci as Dr. Conrad Zimsky, Earth specialist and designer of Project D.E.S.T.INI., based in Alaska. He went on high alert after the magnetic instability caused an attack in Trafalgar Square by an enormous flock of pigeons.
• Tchéky Karyo as Dr. Serge Leveque, nuclear weapons specialist. He speaks with a French accent.
• Bruce Greenwood as Commander Robert "Bob" Iverson, USN, Major Childs' commander and mentor.
• DJ Qualls as Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch, a computer hacker who is widely regarded as the best in the world, crippled the FBI's database, recruited to control the flow of information on the Internet to prevent public panic.
• Alfre Woodard as Flight Commander Dr. Talma "Stick" Stickley, the mission controller for NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour and Virgil.
• Richard Jenkins as Lieutenant General Thomas Purcell, U.S. Army, leader of the operation.
• Fred Ewanuick (credited as Fred Ewanvick) as Endeavor Flight Engineer Jenkins.

The Core had out-to-sea scenes, starring USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), with full support of the US Navy.

The original plan for the shuttle landing scene had been for Endeavour to attempt a landing at Los Angeles International Airport with the shuttle coming to a halt on the nearby beaches, however due to the events of September 11, 2001 the crew was not allowed to film at LAX. The scene was therefore rewritten with Endeavour landing in the LA river.

The film garnered mixed reviews. The film received 40% positive reviews out of 156 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10 at the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes; the site's consensus states "a B-movie with its tongue planted firmly in cheek, The Core is so unintentionally (intentionally?) bad that it's a hoot."[2] Roger Ebert said "I have such an unreasonable affection for this movie, indeed, that it is only by slapping myself alongside the head and drinking black coffee that I can restrain myself from recommending it."[3]

The film grossed $31.1 million in United States theaters, and another $43.0 million overseas for a total worldwide gross of $74.1 million[1] against a production budget of $85 million, causing it to be a financial failure.

Several reviews cited the numerous scientific inaccuracies in the film.[4][5][6] Elvis Mitchell, of The New York Times, said, "The brazen silliness of The Core is becalming and inauthentic, like taking a bath in nondairy coffee creamer. The Earth core's inability to turn is mirrored in the cast's inability to give the picture any spin."[7] Kenneth Turan, of the Los Angeles Times, was a little more forgiving, saying, "If The Core finally has to be classified as a mess, it is an enjoyable one if you're in a throwback mood. After all, a film that comes up with a rare metal called unobtainium can't be dismissed out of hand."[8]

In response to criticism of his screenplay's lack of scientific realism, screenwriter John Rogers responded that he tried to make the science accurate, but expended three years fighting "to get rid of the ... dinosaurs, magma-walks in 'space-suits', bullshit-sci-crap sources for the Earth's crisis, and a windshield for the ship Virgil."[9]

On March 30, 2009, it was reported that Dustin Hoffman was leading a campaign to get more real science into science-fiction movies. Hoffman is on the advisory board of the Science & Entertainment Exchange, an initiative of the United States National Academy of Sciences, intended to foster collaborations between scientists and entertainment industry professionals in order to minimize inaccurate representations of science and technology such as those found in The Core.[10]

In a poll of hundreds of scientists about bad science fiction films, The Core was voted the worst.[10]

On February 21, 2010, The Guardian ran an article about American professor Sidney Perkowitz's proposals to curb bad science in science fiction movies. In the article, Perkowitz is said to have hated The Core. "If you violate [the coherent rules of science] you are in trouble. The chances are that the public will pick it up and that is what matters to Hollywood. The Core did not make money because people understood the science was so out to lunch," he added.[11]

• Deep Core, 2000 film with a similar plot
• Descent, 2005 film with a similar plot
• List of disaster films
• Polar Storm, 2009 film with a similar plot

Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Core

• The Core at IMDb
• The Core at AllMovie
• The Core at Box Office Mojo
• The Core at Metacritic
• The Core at Rotten Tomatoes
• Review of The physics of The Core at Bad Astronomy
• Review of The Core at Intuitor.com