People have already written a lot about 'The Core' (QuickTime; Flash 6 -- and a-win-an-iPod pop-up!). It was released in the States before it came out here this week (called 'Fusion' at cinemas showing it in French).
It's amusing to see the usual different views at the IMDb.
"Everyone who was involved in this project should be banned out of Hollywood for the rest of his life. Director Jon Amiel should take a year off and begin to think about other career options,All the actors should dissapeare and never return to movies for at least five years.The people who wrote this film should replace their brains with those of cats. And finnaly,the people who are responsable for the awful,terrible and embrassing Sfx should go to Canada," thinks somebody in Israel, while in New York someone else shouts at us:
"the acting was bearable, dialogue was campy and the movie's producers didn't hold back at all in making fun of themselves. they knew it was an absurd idea that armageddon come from the stalling of the earth's core, but they definitely researched this film to the hilt. there's actually a bit of character development in the movie too, something you don't see often in action/scifi movies. one thing i have to warn you about though....SEE THIS MOVIE IN THE MOVIE THEATERS ON THE HUGEST HUGEST HUGEST SCREEN YOU CAN FIND."
Yes, well, we nearly always do that anyway, though in Paris the "hugest hugest" was unfortunately showing the dubbed version.
 The plot was wonderfully predictable, the acting was largely camp, though Tchéky Karyo as the French scientist stood out, while Marianne's favourite was DJ Qualls as 'Rat' the hacker. Hilary Swank in dress uniform cuts a fine salute and, if anybody ever films even part of that 'Night's Dawn' opus, Aaron Eckhart would probably have to get the part of Joshua 'Lagrange' Calvert, flying the 'Lady Macbeth'! Indeed, if Hamilton had written 'The Core', he might have given Eckhart and an over-earnest Swank a decent chance at free-fall sex, or something like it (many an SF writer's delight), once it seems they're decidedly doomed and have just 12 minutes left. Had I most improbably been in Eckhart's shoes, I'd have found that a far, far better thing to do than thinking patriotic and even spiritual thoughts...
 The special effects are almost all you could ask of a catastrophe cornucopia: a space shuttle crash-landing and the bird madness in Trafalgar Square worked rather better than a collapsing Coliseum and some of the oddities at the centre of the earth. I never quite understood why our bold crew had to avoid the "black bits" on their way to the middle with a payload of nukes...
Alan Boyle took a look at the science of it all, as do Carolyn Giardina, and Jennifer Hillner at 'Wired'. It turns out we know precious little about the earth's core, but Discover finds "The Core a guilt-free pleasure? even for geophysicists and other science cognoscenti."
Dash it all: I'll give a healthy 6.5/10 - that's minus half a point because our all-American heroes were silly enough to keep their suits on. ;-)
(pix: Rob McEwan/Paramount)
1:18:04 PM link 
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