The Core

Any movie even remotely resembling Armageddon is a shameful thing to spring on an unsuspecting populace, especially during times like these. Throw in Hilary Swank and it’s downright unpatriotic. The Core posits a nice, little, hugely inane premise—a military project has stopped the earth’s core from rotating properly—and spends the rest of the movie splitting time between action sequences and patchwork scientific explanations for how any of this could possibly happen. To resolve this spectacular crisis, the military’s toppest secretest enlist a ragtag band of scientists, astronauts, and other assorted nerds with whom they’ve never worked before (other cast members include Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo, Aaron Eckhart, and D.J. Qualls) to jumpstart the core and save the world in time for the credits. No imagination, countless inconsistencies, and too much Swank—none of it being the magazine variety—add up to one disaster that even Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis wouldn’t have the heart to save.