Director: Jon Amiel
Starring: Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Richard Jenkins, Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo, Alfre Woodard, Bruce Greenwood
Running Time: 135 minutes
Synopsis: College professor and geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) analyzes a series of unusual phenomena and concludes that the rotation of the Earth's core has been disrupted, which will result in imminent mass destruction. In a hurriedly planned mission, Josh is teamed with a crew including the arrogant Dr. Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), astronaut Beck (Hilary Swank), and brilliant inventor Braz (Delroy Lindo). They have to bore through the Earth in a specially designed vessel, and then detonate nuclear bombs to reactivate the core.
Running Time: 135 minutes
Synopsis: College professor and geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) analyzes a series of unusual phenomena and concludes that the rotation of the Earth's core has been disrupted, which will result in imminent mass destruction. In a hurriedly planned mission, Josh is teamed with a crew including the arrogant Dr. Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), astronaut Beck (Hilary Swank), and brilliant inventor Braz (Delroy Lindo). They have to bore through the Earth in a specially designed vessel, and then detonate nuclear bombs to reactivate the core.
What Works Well: The opening act features a series of gripping-enough catastrophes, including pacemaker failures, disoriented birds, and an improvised space shuttle landing. The scenes featuring Dr. Keyes and Dr. Zimsky explaining their conclusions to military and political leaders are reasonably effective in establishing the premise.
What Does Not Work As Well: The rest of the film drowns in increasingly preposterous nonsense. While Sci-Fi need not be grounded in actual science, the on-the-fly silliness in this script classifies as junk. Lowlights include "unobtanium" material that can withstand enormous pressure, mission preparations that come together in three months, improvised calculations to solve complex problems in mere minutes, and a slapped-on evil plot that never gains traction. The all-too-serious attitude does not help, the special effects are patchy at best, the running time is unnecessarily prolonged, and too many scenes feature scale models of a caterpillar-like vessel navigating murky soup.
Key Quote:
Dr. Josh Keyes: So, we hotwire the nukes, as one does. We seed them through the core at locations that have to be accurate to the inch. We detonate them in a sequence that has to be accurate to the millisecond. Then we outrun the biggest nuclear shockwave in history.
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