But What If We Could?

The late 1990s and early 2000s were marked by a notable resurgence of disaster films. What had been a well-trod genre of the 1970s, with the likes of The Towering Inferno, Airport, and Avalanche movies, among many others, quickly petered out when everyone realized the films basically all had the same story and the same beats. Bring a bunch of actors together, give them the mild semblance of character arcs. Mash them against a disaster they have no hope of surviving, watch a few of them die, and then let a couple live to tell the tale after. Lathered, rinsed, and repeated until audiences grew bored.

But in the 1990s the disaster genre came blasting back, in large part thanks to the success of one film: Independence Day. That movie, masterminded by Roland Emmerich, gave way to a whole ton of new films, many of them also made by Emmerich. The most successful of the whole genre didn’t come from Emmerich, though, but Michael Bay with a little movie called Armageddon. That 1998 movie blew past half a billion at the Box Office and cemented Bay as a master of blockbuster films. It gave birth to the term “Baysplosions”, and it showed just how to make the perfect, then-modern disaster film: show a crisis, introduce some stars, blow up a couple of cities, and have a couple of survivors save the day before mourning their fallen comrades. Again, lather, rinse, and repeat until the audience grows bored.

By 2003 they were growing very bored, and yet studios still thought there was life left in the genre. Bay had already proven the genre could be successful, but deep down I think he knew that his film was bad. It was successful but also terrible, so there’s a winking slyness to the film, a level of comedy that shows the director knew it was shit and just went with it. The fact that it was successful shit might just be the biggest joke of them all. But shittiness can only go so far, and when audiences have seen that crap enough times they tune out, and they tuned out hard for The Core, a movie so desperate to be Armageddon, just without nearly the skill, talent, or budget to make a film that could work.

Here’s the thing, though: I actually kind of like The Core. Armageddon is a shitty movie that hasn’t aged very well. Everyone loved it at the time, and then we all collectively said, “wait, what did we just make into one of the most successful films of all time? That fucking movie?” Meanwhile, no one liked The Core when it came out. It was panned by critics and audiences, with everyone realizing this was a terrible, stupid movie that never should have been made. That’s why, long term, it’s aged so well: when you’re already a rejected B-movie no one likes, the only direction you can go is up. I caught the film years after its theatrical debut and I loved it because it’s just so stupid, so idiotic, so terrible that you can’t help but find it endearing. The Core is terrible, and that’s all part of its charm.

In a mysterious incident, thirty-two people drop dead. All of them are in the same city, all nearby a park holding a festival. All of them were fine a few minutes before but then keeled over at the same time, and no one is sure why. Enter geologic scientist and college professor Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart). When the government brings him in to look at the case, Keyes immediately pegs it as an EMP pulse from the Earth, rare and unexpected, but not a weapon. It knocked out all the pace makers in a certain radius and the thirty-two people died from a freak accident. Understanding it’s not an attack from a foreign enemy, the government dismisses it and moves on. Josh, however, does not.

Over the next few weeks he and his teachers' assistants look into the incident, and others occurring all over the world, and they realize that this wasn’t just one or two or three freak happenstances. No, this is something bigger: the core of the world is slowing down, and if it does it’ll mean that the electro magnetic shield that protects the world will collapse, ending all life on the planet. The only way to save the world is to, somehow, bore into the center of the Earth and restart the core, getting it spinning properly again. But that’s crazy, right? There’s no way you could bore into the center of the Earth… but what if you could?

Let’s be clear, from about minute one the plot of The Core is completely insane and devoid of all attachment to reality. The core of the Earth isn’t going to stop, and even if it somehow did there would be no way to restart it. You certainly couldn’t drive a vehicle into the Earth, get it all the way to the core, and then, as per the movie, launch five nuclear war heads within the liquid layer of the core and cause the core to spin again. You certainly couldn’t get five humans down there to survive it, and there’s absolutely no way these people could stay in constant communication with the surface to relay back all their findings and how the mission is going. None of that could occur. Simply saying, “but what if we could?” doesn’t change that.

And yet, “but what if we could?” is the whole mantra of the film. The movie knows it’s utterly bugnuts insane, that’s stupid to a degree very rarely met by other Hollywood productions. Nothing about this film makes sense and so everything that doesn’t make sense is handwaved away. “But what if we could?” solves all the problems because it says, “those aren’t problems we have to consider. Don’t think. Don’t use your brain. This story isn’t meant for brains. All you have to do is kick back and let the stupidity flow through you.”

Because of that, The Core is actually kind of fun. It has the same logic to it as Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Don’t try to think about the logical inconsistencies of the story. You’re just here for a good time. And The Core does provide that. It’s a light and breezy disaster film that provides all the thrills and action you expect from the genre. Big, dumb sequences happen that elicit oohs and ahhs from the audience. Heroic characters are introduced who are able to be down-to-earth and make quips, instantly making them into characters we want to watch. A game cast provides all the charisma the film needs to make its ludicrous plot go down smooth. Really, it’s perfectly engineered to be successful… except for the fact that it totally bombed at the Box Office.

And you can understand why, of course. Not only did it come out at the tail end of the disaster boom where it could flounder alongside other failed contenders (and, weirdly, one very successful Emmerich film, The Day After Tomorrow), but it was also incredibly stupid. Audiences could smell the stink coming off this movie and they stayed very far away. Why go see The Core when you could watch Underworld or Hulk or Timeline and, my god, there were a lot of really terrible films in 2003. Maybe audiences just didn’t want to go to theaters at all.

Whatever the case, The Core cost Paramount $85 Mil to make and it only managed to limp to $74.1 Mil during its release. Then it went to video stores and was forgotten by just about everyone except people like me. We saw the film and knew its charms. It’s dumb on every level but game to entertain and I can appreciate that. No one wanted to see The Core, but a simple statement solves that problem, too. “But what if we could?” Give the film a chance and embrace it for what it is, an idiotic and frequently nonsensical movie that had no right ever getting made at all. If you can find the charm in that you’re the perfect viewer for this film.

I would say The Core won’t disappoint, but that would be a lie. It will utterly disappoint. But then, that’s the point. That’s why it’s fun to watch. Every stupid twist, every ludicrous moment, just makes the film better. Shut off your brain and enjoy this crap from 2003 because it very rarely gets dumber than this.