Review of The Core and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Trash Belongs With Trash

Published on March 18, 2004 By Phantom of the Night In Movie Reviews

In the past few weeks, I've seen some good movies, and I've seen some stink burgers. These two are so bad, that I've decided to put all of my rotten eggs in one basket.

About a month ago, I rented The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with Sean. We watched it, then we sat there, wondering what the hell we just spent 5 bucks on. The action is fine and dandy. Guns are blarin’’, cars are speedin’’. As for the rest of the movie, uhhhhh, not so good. First off, the story is absolutely ludicrous. The odds that Captain Nemo, the invisible man, Mina Harker the vampiress, Dr. Jekyll and Dorian Gray were all together at that chosen time, just hurts my head. Throw in Tom Sawyer, and I'm annoyed. I figured this would eventually get better, because why would James Bond be in a movie this bad? Apparently, he needs the money.

The performances in this movie was excellent. I say "was," because if you add them all up, they might equal one solid performance. Sean Connery as Allan Quartermain, is plausible because Sean is an aging adventurer. Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray at least displayed some acting ability, but sadly had nowhere to go, with the poorly written character. I, personally, was furious with the Gray character, since I watched "The Picture of Dorian Gray" last summer and it was excellent. I found this movie to be the basis of my Dorian Gray knowledge, and was let down by this movie's interpretation of the character.

The other cast members seemed out of place, as if they were waiting for a bus, and they only needed to ad lib til it got there. Jason Flemyng, as Dr. Jekyll, had his moments where I actually forgot how bad this movie was, but then he would talk to another character, and they would talk back.

The story itself was far-fetched, even for a summer blockbuster flick. It does try to make things interesting by turning one of the gentlemen into a bad guy, and leaving you to guess who it is, but they put in too many foreshadowing shots, and left no doubt as to the traitor. The scenery is nice. It could have been better, but then again, this is a summer blockbuster flick. Probably one of the biggest flaws to the movie, is Captain Nemo himself. His boat is a 10 story high submarine, which is filled with rooms that would put Trump to shame. This boat pops up by a small London pier, and even cruises through the canals of Venice. Ay Caramba, my brain is hurting! Oh and why are they aligning into one big, freak squad? To stop a man named Fantom, who wants to start a World War. This movie has absolutely no historical background, except that there is a Venice, there is a London, and there is water in between. The climax of the movie results in half of Venice being destroying by a series of bombs being set off in a wave. They stop this plan, by blowing up a building in front of the cycle, to disrupt the pattern.

You would think that the trash ends there right? Guess again. The worst part of the movie just happens to be the very end. Alex Quartermain is killed at some point, and his body is returned to Africa, where Alex was living. The other heroes, with the exception of Gray who was killed by Harker (because they were once in love, and she didn't like him anymore, even though Gray kills himself by destroying his own picture in the original story. bah!), gather to a funeral service for Quartermain. Tom Sawyer places Quartermain's faithful rifle on his grave, but as soon as they walk away, a witch doctor comes out of nowhere, and starts chanting. The skies turn gray, the ground begins to shake, the gun on top of the grave begins to move annnnd.......nothing. The credits begin to roll. Very bad way to set up for a sequel, at least Spiderman was a bad tongue-in-cheek way of setting up a sequel. Sean and I decided to scroll the credits in search of a director or writer, and found none. We also looked for writing credits, and, I'm pretty sure, we didn't find any either. I now that there was no director listed because Sean Connery pulled a "Norton's History X" on Stephen Torrington.

The other trash film of the month, goes to none other than "The Core." I had a strong feeling about this movie ever since I saw the trailer before Star Trek: Nemesis. I was seeing the movie on a field trip with the Sci-Fi Club, and our chaperone was our physics teacher. At the moment in the trailer when Aaron Eckhart explains how the planet's core stopped spinning, our physics teacher Mr. Bullock, burst into laughter. After Stanley Tucci said the classic line, "Yes, but what if we could?" Mr. Bullock burst into laughter again, and yelled, "That's insane! Who wrote this crap?"

This was my experience with The Core before I watched the movie. Sean and I were staying in and splitting a twelve-pack so we didn't really care what was on TV. We watched the entire movie, and thankfully it wasn't as bad as LXG, but it was still pretty bad.

The Core is another near-apocalyptic summer movie, which displays how mankind must put aside their differences and unite, in order to save the world. Thankfully, this movie does not involve some big asteroid, but sadly, there are still high-powered lasers. Like “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact,” a crack team is assembled to save the planet, except that instead of bad acting in space, we have bad acting underground.

Thank’s to America’s latest weapon of mass destruction, called DESTINI (Determined Earth Seismic Trigger Initiative, I think), the core has stopped spinning. The spinning core protects us from ultraviolet light, it regulates the weather, and keeps the electromagnetic field stable. Obviously, without a spinning core, we’re in deep doodoo. The team embark on their way to the core in a specially designed ship named Virgil, with specially made lasers, and an MRI viewing system. They also have a truckload of nukes to set off in the core in hopes of recreating the Earth’s “spin cycle,”

The Core isn’t a scientific movie, it isn’t a well-written, well-shot movie. It’s just an average run of the mill movie. The acting in this movie isn’t great, but what do you expect from Hilary Swank, and DJ Qualls. The movie is bad, but it’s one of those movies that is good in it’s badness. If that makes sense. Like “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” but maybe not that good, the movie has a feel to it, where you enjoy pointing out all the flaws, and all the terribly written and acted scenes. The only character that I enjoyed watching throughout the movie was Dr. Conrad Zimsky, played by Stanley Tucci. I like Tucci, and he brought a nice level of humour to a movie that desperately needed it. Tucci provides the classic line, which I thought should have been the tagline, “Yes, but what if we could?” If only the poster said, “This will never happen......but what if it did.” He also produced a funny scene at the end of the movie, where he is sitting in one of the compartments containing a nuclear bomb. As the timer ticks away, he continues to narrate into his tape recorder, which he hoped to sell as a book deal, then all of a sudden, throws away the recorder, begins to laugh and says, “What the fuck am I doing?”

The Core isn’t something that I would pay to rent, unless, you plan on drinking throughout the entire movie, in which case, you’ll probably have many laughs. If you’re not drinking, I would wait until you find this movie on Fox on a Sunday afternoon, where it belongs.

Comments

Sherye Hanson

on Mar 19, 2004

Thank you for the review of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I slept through the whole movie and wondered what it was about. I guess I didn't miss much. It might have been better if we'd read the books that were about the fictional characters, but probably not much.

crimson

on Mar 19, 2004

I am going to have to agree wholeheartedly with both of your reviews. The Core cost my poor sister 15 bucks in late fees (hehehe) because I couldn't watch it all at once, but was determined to get through it. I expected a lot more from Hillary Swank. DJ Qualls just makes me cringe, wondering when he's going to be humiliated in any flick. And LEG? What a waste of good actors! I generally will see anything with Richard Roxburgh in it... but man... what a waste of good money, mine and the studio that released this piece of crap. And Sean Connery... man. All that talent for this? I only have two words.... NO SEQUEL!!!!!

Phantom of the Night

on Mar 20, 2004

If only it were that easy, but sadly they've already begun LXG2.

Gene Nash

on Mar 20, 2004

I hated Stanley Tucci in The Core. WIth that wig he looked liked a latter day Bronson Pinchot. I just kept thinking, Dang they could have saved themselves a lot of money if they just hired Bronson.

crazy llama 69

on Mar 20, 2004

i see the movies r bad do you have to go on about it! imagine how the director and script writer feels! you heartless people! you should all go to prison! i cant imagine why you would wanna hurt someone this way!
1st mate

Crazy llama 96

on Mar 20, 2004

I prefer movies with a bit more "action". Some of these movies include Barney, Goof troop and Harriet the spy. These are all classics

Aunt Jamima

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