Didn’t we do this before? Oh, right, last time the threat was from outside of the Earth. Now instead of giant rocks hitting the Earth, we’ve got some serious internal bugs threatening life as we know it.

Armageddon–oops, sorry, I meant The Core, is a rollercoaster ride-of-a-movie that rocks you in your seat, without actually moving you. It’s empty. It’s shallow. It’s even kind of cheesy, but I have to admit that The Core is fun movie.

The core of the Earth has stopped spinning, meaning the electromagnetic field of the planet will soon give out. What does this mean? It means lightning storms, pigeon missiles, people with pacemakers dying, and the ozone layer having more holes than an old sponge. Eventually, the Earth will predictably die, unless our dashing group of incredibly witty, always charming, and downright gorgeous scientists can just do something to save it!

Lo and behold, we have Samuel L. Jackson with a technologically impossible giant metal mole that shoots lasers into the ground to make a path to travel.

Once they get to the center of the Earth, our Super Team will plant a whole bunch of nuclear bombs to “jumpstart” the core of the Earth, and bring us back to peace and happiness.

Along the way, they run into a bunch of bumps and obstacles, including burning lava, uninhibited arrogance (yes, we have the typecast I-am-better-than-everyone scientist), some miscalculations (how many woodchucks does it take to jumpstart the core of the Earth? Apparently we don’t have enough.) and a heartwarming (“Really?” “No.”) love connection.

On the other side of the Earth’s crust, there is the predictable death and destruction. This includes the demolition of the Golden GateBridge, the utter annihilation of the Coliseum in Rome and some misguided pigeons wreaking utter havoc in New York City.

Now here is the catch–the United States, which of course must be the one saving the Earth, is actually the cause of the problem. The whole movie alludes to a secret project with malevolent undertones (that folder labeled “Top Secret” looks suspicious). I probably just ruined the movie for you, but I think Director John Amiel already did that.

Let’s put it this way: The Core is a movie where a whole bunch of things blow up and you don’t remember any of the characters names. That doesn’t mean that the acting was bad, because it wasn’t. That just means as an audience member, you just won’t care.

The main character–named Josh, of course–is played by Aaron Eckhart, who really gets into his role, as do most of the other characters. Unfortunately, that role is a bit too whimsical to truly make me believe that the characters are facing the end of the world. They really don’t stop making jokes, which is alright…for a comedy.

Unlike Armageddon, The Core wasn’t particularly inspiring or moving. There definitely was a scene where the whole Super Team walks together in slow motion, and you can really only see their silhouettes, just like in Armageddon, but I kind of laughed when that happened in this movie.

The Core isn’t bad. It’s just too simple. In sixth grade, I would have worshipped it, and then gone home and drawn pictures of a giant Earth-mole-sub-terrestrial ship. Now that I am in college, however, I just don’t see myself breaking out the sketch pad anytime soon.

I give it 2 out of 5 stars.

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