Movie Lemons: The Core

I had seen the preview for this movie several years ago, but never got around to seeing it. If I remember correctly, I found the plot so idiotic that I had made a conscious decision to not watch this movie. Fast-forward several years, and as I am watching television yesterday evening, this movie comes on, and I decide to watch it (as there was nothing else playing). Little did I know that watching the blank television screen might have proved to be a more entertaining venture.

The movie starts out with the far-fetched notion that the Earth's core has come to a stop for some undetermined reason. The consequence of this is that the Earth's magnetic field will slowly collapse and eventually disappear, leaving the planet vulnerable to solar radiation bombardment, which will destroy everything alive on the planet. Who will save the Earth, you ask. Well, scientists will, that's who! Of course, all the scientists present agree that there is no way they can dig down to the core of the Earth. Unless...

In comes a forgotten geological genius, who on his own, has come up with a new mining technology that relies on lasers (what else?) and ultrasounds, and can dig at speeds that leave the special effects crew far behind. Conveniently, our genius has also invented a new material, which has the special properties of being nearly indestructible, and with the unique capability to convert heat to energy..... Did I mention what he names the material? Unobtonium, as it's so unobtainable.....

Armed with these two ideas, in steps the US military to fund the whole project and build a ship that can carry a crew to the center of the Earth. Now, guess how they plan to get the Earth's core started. You go it, nuclear bombs. Not just one, but five of them. And not just any bombs, 200 megaton bombs..... And to top it off, the Army realises that it would not do to have any information about this problem leak out to the world and cause a mass panic, so they hire/kidnap a reputed hacker to "filter" the Internet and prevent spread of information about the issue. Of course, when a hole in the magnetic field of the planet allows solar radiation to melt the Golden Gate bridge in half, and destroy most of the city of San Franscisco, the hacker is one it, using a program he wrote in a few minutes to search and destroy any information relating to the disaster.....

You can imagine that the journey is fraught with dangers, but fear not, with a new scanning system developed by the head scientist, they'll be able to see the path ahead. With a crew of six, the 4 day journey takes them through a giant cobalt geode to fields of diamonds the "size of Rhode Island". After several fatalities, we discover that one of the scientists on board (yes, the one everybody hates within five minutes) created a weapon used to create tectonic instabilities through the Earth's core.... The same scientist that makes a mistake calculating the explosive yield required to restart the rotation of the core is able to quickly calculate that using precise placement of the bombs, they will be able to set up a harmonic resonance that will amplify the explosive yield by exactly the right amount. Right!

My perception of this story begins with the apparent lack of respect for the audience's intelligence, and the clear lack of knowledge of the writing and production teams. Good Lord, it could have been just a little more believable if one of you had bothered to open up a grade school science book! I know it's science fiction (well, it's fiction of some kind), but that doesn't mean it has to be utterly outrageous. I mean, for a second, I was almost sure Uwe Boll had directed this waste of celluloid. Do yourself a favour, and just make up your own story instead of losing the brain cells watching this sorry excuse for a film.