The Core (2003) - Movie Review

These intrepid souls will travel to the Earth's core to save the planet!

The first time I saw Aaron Eckhart (Battle: Los Angeles), I saw him play the role of Harvey Dent/2 Face in Christopher Nolan's, The Dark Knight (2008), and I have to admit that I was impressed... Not just with the caliber of movie, but also with his performance in the movie as well!

Since then though, he has continued to give pretty solid performances in just about everything that I have seen him in, the only problem is that the movies that he has done, just have not quite cut the mustard...

Now you might be wondering why I am mentioning this, well... That is because, The Core (2003), is another one of those movies that he has done, that was good... But not quite good enough... But we will get in to that in a minute.

The movie poster for: The Core (2003). 

Written by: Cooper Layne (The Fog) & John Rogers (Transformers), Directed by: Jon Amiel (Copycat). Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank (Terror In The Family), Delroy Lindo (The Big Bang), Stanley Tucci (The Hunger Games), DJ Qualls (Z Nation), Richard Jenkins (The Cabin In The Woods), Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek), Tchéky Karyo (Vampire Party) & Alfre Woodard (Star Trek: First Contact).

"Why do you get dibs on being the hero?"

- Dr. Josh Keyes (A quote from the movie: The Core.)

This movie tells the story of how when planet Earth stops it's rotation, mankind becomes doomed due to the effects of the Earth no longer rotating... Discovering this is Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart), a brilliant college professor, who ends up taking his findings to the arrogant, yet brilliant Dr. Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci)... Of course the good Doctor dismisses Keyes findings, that is of course until he discovers something from his own work...

Now along with the help of General Thomas Purcell (Richard Jenkins), Commander Robert Iverson (Bruce Greenwood), Major Rebecca Childs (Hilary Swank) and a team of scientists, Dr. Keyes will lead a team of scientists in a ship designed by Dr. Ed Brazzleton (Delroy Lindo) to the Earth's core in the hopes of restarting the Earth's rotation, and save humanity!

This team will prepare for the mission of a life time, as they try to save humanity!

In the end, this movie had great special effects, and a great story line, but the ending... While having some good elements, also kind of really sucked!

What I mean by this, is that I don't know if it was the writing that failed or the actors, but one right after the other, everybody just began to suck! Down to cliche's being spouted left and right, Aaron Eckhart taking a scene out of early 90s teen comedies, and Hilary Swank seeming to all of a sudden becoming dazed and confused through most of the rest of the movie... Well it just made the ending suck!

But the rest of the movie is really quite good, and worth checking out!

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Battle Los Angeles (2011) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_385" align="alignright" width="300"] Official Score = 2 Devils[/caption]

A few years ago Hollywood had a brief love affair with re-igniting the Alien invasion story concept, what with having released a remake to Orson Welles' (Citizen Kane) 1953 classic, War Of The Worlds, with Tom Cruise (Minority Report), and Skyline (2010) with Eric Balfour (24), to name a few...

Now for the most part it seems like it has been universally a bust... But there was one movie in there that I personally thought was pretty spectacular!

That movie of course being, Battle Los Angeles (2011):

Written by: Christopher Bertolini (Madso's War) and Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman (Ninja Turtles). Starring: Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight), Michelle Rodriguez (Machete), Ramon Rodriguez (Harlem Hostel), and Bridget Moynahan (Noise).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Ssgt Nanz as he is preparing to go war with Aliens![/caption]

Battle Los Angeles is a fun tale of how Staff Seargent Michael Nantz (Eckhart), a veteran military officer who is about to retire from the service... That is until it looks like the Earth is being hit by a weird meteor shower!

What I mean by this is that these meteors start slowing down as they get closer and closer to the Earth!

You see it turns out that these meteors are actually an Alien invasion fleet that has come to take over! So now with Staff Sergeant Nantz's retirement having been rescinded, he and his new team are sent in to the battle zone in an effort to take back the city of Los Angeles, and help begin to stop this invasion from continuing!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] The Army as they go to war with the Alien invaders![/caption]

Now on the plus side, this movie has amazing special effects, to the point where when the humans are battling with the aliens in one of their apocalyptic battles, it almost brought tears to my eyes seeing how well made these scenes were!

This movie also has a great cast, I mean Aaron Eckhart is really proving himself as an man of action... So to speak... Michelle Rodriguez has proven herself to be a kick ass woman who can kick some major ass as a pivitol member of a tactical in the majority of the movies I have seen her in, and this one's no different! And lastly I did want to mention the awesome direction...

As a matter of fact, the only real draw back to this movie is that the story is really kind of grossly subpar! What I mean by this is that there is no real character development amongst any of the actors, in the posters they show what looks like the Aliens showing up at very points, in various area of the planet for decades, but never explain that, and also in the end you don't really care much for the people that these military officers are saving beyond the symbolism of the American Military being there to save their citizens from the enemies of the United States... Which is cool in real life, but in a movie is just not enough for me!

In total, this movie is definitely worth viewing at least once!

http://youtu.be/CWPkJD0YHeM