28 Days Later vs The Core

So, I figure there are at least two ways the world might end. Neither of them, luckily, involves anything you might read in a Left Behind novel, or that you might have heard from that weird uncle of yours who always seems to have a conspiracy theory about stuff like where fluoride comes from, or what may or may not happen to your identity when you shop online. No, my friends, the two ways the world might end are the British way, and the good ole’ U.S. of A. way.  One guess which version includes movie stars tunneling to the center of the earth.

28 Days Later—British--opens with scenes of stark horror. Actually, it begins with an enraged monkey, which rocks. But then, the stark horror. After the pissed off monkey. Wait for it.

It’s present-day London (or is it the future? I think it was the present, or a possible present, or—best case scenario—an alternate reality, pissed-off monkey London.) Monkeys are being tested with some sort of rage serum, to…uh…test the effects of rage? Or learn to cure rage? I dunno, but it’s monkeys in cages, and some animal rights types go in to free them. The monkeys fly into an awesome rage, all red-eyed and loud.

Twenty-eight days later…

Jim, a bicycle messenger recovering in a hospital after a terrible accident (he appears to have been through some brain surgery), awakens to find himself alone in the hospital. He staggers out of his room and down the hall, to find the building completely deserted. These early scenes are the most impressive of 28 Days Later, with Jim running through what appears to be actual locations in London, each one completely deserted. I was reminded of the scene in Vanilla Sky with an empty Times Square, but unlike that moment, the scenes in 28 Days Later aren’t exhilarating but confusing, sad and desperate. We don’t yet know what has happened to everyone, and what role, if any, those pissed monkeys might be playing in the whole thing. (Spoiler: your monkey questions will go unanswered.)

Soon, he meets up with Selena and Mark, who explain about the rage epidemic that spread across their city, then country, then basically everywhere else. Humans were infected with uncontrollable rage, spread it to each other, and quickly started wiping everyone out. In a short amount of time, Selena and Mark have developed rules and tactics for surviving, figured out much about the remaining ragers (it takes twenty seconds to be infected), and gotten on with their new lives, which includes living and not much else.

In short order, Selena and Jim are on their own. They find Frank and Hannah, a father and daughter holed up in a high-rise, using Christmas lights to signal to other survivors. They have a radio, and believe that there is a military base where they can find safety and escape.

What they find at the military base, I’ll not spoil, except,

1. The commanding officer and his soldiers have very specific ideas about how to save the world. There’s a creepy scene where Selena and Hannah are brought red dresses, and Selena gives Hannah the kind of practical advice that makes it seem as if she’s either had a hard life pre-virus, or she’s at least been in scary movies before.
2. The soldiers keep one of the rage zombies tethered in a courtyard on a chain. What a perverse idea. You know he’s not gonna be out there for long though. I mean, come on.
3. 28 Days Later becomes a different movie once it’s on the military base. A movie, unfortunately, that is not as good as it had been.

All of the performances in 28 Days Later are great, especially Naomi Harris as Selena, and Brendan Gleeson as Frank. Aside from Gleeson, I don’t think I’ve seen any of these actors in a film before, which benefited 28 Days Later to a great degree. One of the perks of casting little-known actors is that any of them could go at any second. Why Jim wasn’t attacked while he was a sitting coma duck there in the hospital is beyond me, so I won’t ask.

28 Days Later was directed by Danny Boyle, who directed Trainspotting, a movie I loved, and The Beach, a movie I never saw, possessing a trailer that sent me into an eye-roll-induced headache on several occasions. He’s endowed 28 Days Later with a striking visual style (especially when the newly infected get their rage on), and he keeps the tension going at all times (that twenty second rule is pretty smart. Once someone gets, say, blood in their eye, start the countdown, and sure enough…). There was a lot of fuss over 28 Days Later’s alternate endings. It has three, one of which makes perfect sense, one of which is sort of a concession to audience members wanting a happy ending, and another that gives in completely. That the latter is the one actually at the end of 28 Days Later is a little disheartening, especially since Boyle spent so much of the movie confounding our expectations of how movies like this normally work. Oh well, it could have been much, much worse.

The Core is one of those movies, like Deep Impact or Mission to Mars, that decorates a standard action script with acclaimed actors, as a way of showing that it’s not just shit blowing up, but Very Important Storytelling. If Hillary Swank and Aaron Eckhart are at the controls of the core-driller, then their mission is soulful and intelligent. If a scientist is played by Stanley Tucci, then he must be one of wit and integrity, right? In that regard, The Core is much like Deep Impact and Mission to Mars. Also, it’s like those movies in that it sucks. A lot.

The following things are necessary to care about if you are to enjoy The Core:

1. How are they going to get to the center of the earth?
2. What are they going to do when they get there?
3. How are they going to get back out?

You don’t care, do you? See, I could tell. I can spot people like you a mile away. People who don’t care about The Core. You probably rented it anyway, didn’t you?

Something’s up with Earth’s magnetic field. Hillary Swank is having trouble landing the space shuttle. Birds start flying into statues and crowds, all swoopy and flappy, and people with pacemakers drop dead. The space shuttle, okay, the pacemakers, I understand, but is that how birds work? Really? Cause that seems like it might be bullshit. Google “are the crazy birds in The Core bullshit?” and get back to me.

Aaron Eckhart deduces that the magnetic field surrounding the earth is on the blink. He’s a rumpled college professor, but he’s respected and is soon brought to some sort of underground bunker place to speak before some military types and some suits and some superior-acting jerks who Don’t Have Time To Waste and Have To Act Now. Eckhart explains what’s happening to the earth by making an aerosol can flame thrower and torching a peach. This, I might add, also seems like bullshit, but I’ll take his word for it.

Soon, a team is assembled to figure out just what can be done. Clearly, we’ve got to go to the center of the earth and jump start that thing, right? But how to get there? Luckily, Delroy Lindo has invented a magic new metal, and a rock busting beam, and a tunneling tank thing. He’s been busy. The scientists and astronauts join forces and head to the center of the earth. Their team includes Stanley Tucci as a ridiculously pretentious scientist and D.J. Qualls as a ridiculously nerdy computer hacker who stays behind to hack and hold up product placements. You still don’t care, do you?

The Core goes on and on, and really only that one thing has to happen, but we keep getting distracted by the clumsy script. Okay, so the ship had to be constructed out of this amazing new Delroy Lindo metal because of the extreme pressure at the earth’s core, correct? So then later, when the crew leaves the ship and walks around inside the earth’s core, wouldn’t they—oh, I dunno—get a tummy ache, or maybe an exploded head? Wouldn’t they collapse like a Schlitz can against Whitney Houston’s forehead? The Core is not designed for such questions, so save your breath.

And your money, save that too.

28 Days Later: B
The Core: D+