2003, Jon Amiel (Entrapment) -- Netflix
Wait, this movie isn't on The Shelf ? Really? Are you sure?
For some reason I assumed I had already written about this one during a previous ReWatch. Even within my fondness for silly disaster movies, this one stands out as silly for the sake of silly. Something has stopped the core of our planet from spinning, so our magnetosphere is dissipating, which will eventually destroy all life on the planet. It starts with birds going wacky and ends with them sending a team of scientists to the centre of the Earth in a special ship to blow up nuclear bombs, to restart the "engine of the planet". I was mildly disappointed they didn't discover a land of dinosaurs at the centre of the planet.Now, most disaster movies hinge on silliness, asking us to believe outrageous things for the sake of the plot. This one jumps the shark. For one, there is the presence of Unobtanium, a fictional composite / alloy that not only can protect someone from heat in the thousands of degrees, but it can also transfer that heat energy into electrical energy. The term has been around since the 50s, but this was the first use in a movie. The metal is used to coat the shell of the train-worm-ship (named Virgil) the team uses to reach the core of the planet. There are more, but I will get to them.
So, as alluded, something is going awry with the core of our planet. Once people start noticing things going weird, they, being the US Govt, respond by kidnapping schlubby college professor Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart, Battle: Los Angeles) and asking him if someone is using a weapon on the US. They, being proposed terrorists, aren't but it does have him do a bit more digging, and then in a fit of panic, confront a renowned celebrity scientist, Dr. Zimsky (Stanley Tucci, Big Night), about his findings who then gets Keyes in front of the POTUS. I have seen this movie at least half a dozen times and I still don't recall what field Zimsky is actually an expert in -- not that it matters to the plot; he's a celebrity scientist. He's the opposite of schlubby and therefore more credible.
Anywayz, The magnetic field around the Earth, that protects us from harmful cosmic radiation, is dissipating. If we don't get the planet's core spinning soon, we will all die, which he demonstrates by putting an orange on the end of a fork and flambéing it with an aerosol can + a light = FIRE BALL !
That leads them to Zimsky's one time scientist buddy, Dr. "Brazz" Brazzelton (Delroy Lindo, Get Shorty), a sort of mad scientist working in the desert on weird shit, like the Unobtanium and Virgil. He will build the vehicle that will take them to the core where they can blow up some nukes to kick start it again. Why exactly did the core stop spinning? Oh nobody knows, but we do get a few conspiratorial scenes between Zimsky and the US General (Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water) running the show. Add to the team a pair of space shuttle pilots, one who almost lost her job by landing a shuttle in those water run-off canals in LA, which was totally unfair cuz she landed after their navigation equipment failed, due to, you guessed it, the issue with the core and the magnetic field. And there is Serge (Tchéky Karyo, La Femme Nikita), the nuclear scientist, and best friend of Josh, who will help them set off the bombs properly. I mean, he will set timers, which totally requires a nuclear specialist. The final member is a hacker named Rat (DJ Qualls, The Man in the High Castle) who will hide them diverting the trillions of dollars required to build Virgil and train the team. He hacks, as all movie hackers do, via buzz words and hot pockets. He does not go into the train-worm-ship, but works in the control centre, with the General. I was never sure where the trillions were actually going, but again, doesn't matter.
Virgil is dropped into the Marianas Trench, and using some sort of sound-lazer ('z' is important) they will blast their way through the chocolate layers of the planet to the sugary centre. It basically is like flying, just more worm-like. Their guidance system shows a sub-par digital representation of .. stuff but also doesn't know what diamonds are, so they are black, and are very very big and best avoided. And empty space is static, which is scary, especially when they drop into the inside of a giant geode. They have to go outside to dislodge a piece of crystal, in soft style space suits that don't seem to be affected by pressure so I guess the Kevlar version of Unobtanium? That's where they lose their first crew members, astronaut Commander Bob Iverson (Bruce Greenwood, Exotica) and the other astronaut, Beck Childs (Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby) has to step up.
They eventually lose pretty much everyone. Serge is lost when the caboose of their train-worm-ship gets damaged and he jumps in to save the nuclear detonators. Josh loses it on Becks because he believes he could have saved Serge if an override was used. Based on how they drag the scene out, I think he could have as well. Serge is squashed in the quickly collapsing section of Virgil, which is then ejected. I wonder what else was supposed to be inside that section. Braz is lost when someone has to volunteer to disengage a safety switch, which is only accessible from outside which is really really hot, like melt his special space suits hot. Finally, Zimsky does not quite sacrifice himself but gets stuck in a section that has to be ejected so they can set off their nuclear payload in a timed succession. He dies narrating into his mini-recorder and smoking a cigarette. Classy.
Though pretty much everyone is dead, and the nukes haven't been enough, they realize they have to use the nuclear engine that powers Virgil. But then how will they fly-worm-tunnel home? Remember the line about how Unobtanium can convert heat energy into electricity? Well, all it takes is attaching big cable wires from the hull to the system and buzz whir click, everything turns back on. But they still have to guide Virgil out of the area around the core and back to the surface, and since we remember how long it took them to get there it will... oh, don't bother... if they just ride the nuclear wave, it will push them faster towards some hereto unknown crevasse that leads to the ocean and bob's your uncle, saved!
Also, they have discovered that it was indeed a weapon that caused all this havoc, one devised by Zimsky and the General. Rat the Hacker uploads everything about this conspiracy to the Internet. And I guess the magnetosphere repairs itself like a living organism?
Yah lots of silly, and yet, the movie still takes itself seriously, seriously enough that the emotional moments feel like real emotion. Zimsky is an ass, and Tucci plays him perfectly, terrible toupee and all. The deaths of likeable Braz and Serge are tragic. The "disaster" is rather minimal, with only the third act depiction of cosmic rays melting the Golden Gate Bridge -- the movie doesn't seek to overwhelm you with death -- as Serge says, they are not trying to save the entire world, just three people -- Serge's family.
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