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IT'S BEEN A while since we've had a full-on, savin'-the-world-one-wisecrack-at-a-time disaster flick. There were those dueling asteroid pics of 1998 – Armageddon and Deep Impact – but Earth, so smug in the security of its existence, is overdue for a wake-up call. The main thing The Core has going for it, besides the Aaron Eckhart eye candy, is the fact that it has a somewhat original premise: instead of a threat from outer space, the human race is forced to deal with the consequences when a top-secret government weapon (an earthquake-making device dubbed "Project Destiny") causes the planet's core to stop rotating. Magnetic fields are horribly disrupted, causing atmospheric nightmares that see pacemakers and pigeons go haywire and Rome reduced to rubble in an electrical superstorm. Naturally, a ragtag team of scientists and astronauts (in addition to Eckhart, the surprisingly strong cast includes Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Bruce Greenwood, and Stanley Tucci) is assembled to pilot a makeshift subterranean transport and "jump-start the core" with nukes. From there, familiarity abounds – beady-eyed military villains, corny dialogue, obvious plot foreshadowing – and The Core easily falls short of gelling into the kind of cheesy goodness that so served the likes of Armageddon and Independence Day. Still, all that really matters here are the special effects, which are plenty thrilling if not particularly memorable – save an unsettling space shuttle crash and the weirdly enjoyable sight of San Francisco being fried by sun-powered microwaves. You want butter on that? (Cheryl Eddy)