Whoa, God must be pissed about what they did to all those Christians.

To put it simply, The Core is Armageddon underground. (Or Deep Impact, if that's your killer meteor movie of choice.) A scientist discovers that there's a big disaster in the making that threatens all life on earth. Once he convinces the Powers That Be that said disaster is for real, a band of intrepid heroes sets out, against seemingly insurmountable odds, to stop it. Throw in some oddball characters, hopefully a few moments of poignant humanity, mix well, and you've got yourself a movie.

In this case, the central disaster is this: the earth's core has stopped spinning. Big deal, you say? Well, it most certainly is. Without the spinning, you don't have the electromagnetic field. Without the electromagnetic field, birds smash into things, pacemakers stop working and eventually, we'll be roasted alive by the sun. Gaaah! I'm getting panicky just thinking about it!

So how much did you like Armageddon? Yeah, that's probably about how much you'll like The Core, give or take your Ben Affleck/Liv Tyler tolerance. This time around the cast includes a batch of talented indie film refugees including Aaron Eckhart as the geologist who discovers that the earth has stalled out; Hilary Swank as the astronaut-turned-terranaut who pilots the mission to jump start it; and Stanley Tucci as the guy who may have flooded the engine in the first place. (Hey, it's my metaphor; I'll drive it into the ground if I want to.) The human portion of the movie is barely sketched in, but they and the rest of the cast make the most of the limited characters they have to work with, so it kind of works. I especially liked Tucci; his preening scientist reminded me of Kenneth Brannagh in the last Harry Potter movie.

Aaron Eckhart and some guy who should totally be playing a Hobbit.

How about the adventure part of the movie? Eh. There are few really tense moments, but there are a lot of scenes where characters meet their ends, sometimes quickly and surprisingly, sometimes in drawn-out agony, sometimes in last-ditch shows of heroism. Overall, it inspires more of a mild "Huh, wonder how they'll get out of this one" than a frantic "What's gonna happen?!?" kind of reaction.

As for the science, well, I'm no geologist, but I have to think BWAH! I'm guessing it makes no sense. It's kind of fun, though, to count the analogies used to try to explain this stuff to us: "Say the earth is this orange . . . " or "Think of the ripples in a pond. . ." I lost track at about eight.

If you're looking for a disaster movie, there's no denying The Core is one. But really, give it a little time and it will show up on cable on a Friday night. You can watch it with one eye while you catch up on your email or jot down your grocery list. Believe me, you'll get as much out of it as I did in the theater.

Gorilla Pants rating: 1.5 out of 4 bananas