The Core

OPENED MARCH 28, CERT 12A, 135 MINS

The Earth's molten core has stopped spinning, and this is a Bad Thing, with knock-on effects that will kill off humanity within a year. Enter a team of kamikaze scientists with an unlimited military budget who plan to drill through the Earth and kick-start the core again with a few nukes.

"This isn't going to be subtle," observes a character early on, and they're not far wrong. What we've got here is kind of the ultimate disaster movie, like Armageddon with the gloves off and a ton of mad science on board. Aaron Eckhart is the sensitive-but-hunky geophysicist hero, Stanley Tucci the deeply vain government-sponsored 'expert', Delroy Lindo the inventor of their sub-surface vehicle and Hilary Swank the plucky astronaut who's piloting the thing.

That it's all utterly predictable is part of the appeal, a comforting familiarity amid all the destruction—some of which is impressive, some of which is sub-standard—and by and large it doesn't disappoint. Turn off your brain and enjoy.

Rating: 3 / 10