I like any film where a college professor is the hero of the story, much less a film where a college professor saves the life of everyone on earth. However, despite the extraordinarily cool idea of a school-teacher as the savior of the world, The Core falls just short of film perfection.

The underlying idea in The Core is that a scientist named Zimsky (Stanley Tucci), has created a weapon, for the United States defense, that can create earthquakes wherever they want. The creation of the weapon, however, caused the core of the earth to stop spinning somehow, thus causing the earth’s electromagnetic field to begin to disintegrate. Josh (Aaron Eckhart), a science professor, is called upon to help create a machine that will drill to the center of the earth and release tons of nuclear weapons that will jump start the earth’s core. Other people are called upon to help, including Brazzleton (Delroy Lindo), who invented a way of drilling through almost anything, and Beck (Hilary Swank), a first-class spaceship pilot.

The problematic issues in The Core could fill a book. They start with impossible problems creating impossible outcomes solved with impossible solutions. They then move to improbable actions to flat out contradictions of the laws of science. But The Core knows it’s ridiculous and just enjoys having fun with the idea. And on that level, it does reach a certain degree of enjoyability. It takes itself seriously enough to avoid being farcical or comical, while never taking itself seriously enough to feel the need to justify its actions.

On the other hand, the narrative doesn’t do a whole lot to redeem it. I never believed there was any chemistry between Eckhart and Swank, and I was never moved by the self-sacrifice that some of the characters make – and I’m usually easily affected by that sort of thing. Yet, in spite of all the preposterousness, The Core manages to be a fun ride to the center of the earth. From the space shuttle crash to the destruction of Rome, there’s a constant flow of scenes that are simply fun in themselves. And then to top it off – I wasn’t joking about liking movies where a teacher saves the world.