AT THE CENTER OF `THE CORE,' SOME GOOFY FUN TO BE HAD.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

GEOPHYSICIST Josh Keyes has burrowed some 2,500 miles beneath the Earth's surface so he can deploy 1,000 megatons of nuclear warheads to jump-start the planet's core. So you can't blame the guy when he takes a deep breath and sighs, ``God, this just all seems so big.''

So big - and so bad. But ``The Core'' isn't awful in a dispiriting way. In fact this engagingly idiotic disaster movie can be a hoot at times, although it runs out of steam about a half-hour before it's over. (You'd think they could save the world in less than two hours.) This is one of those epic stinkers like ``Anaconda'' that at least seems to recognize its own silliness and plays it for the camp that it is. That or the filmmakers are even less talented than the evidence suggests.

The movie opens with 32 people dropping dead in a 10-mile radius. Apparently, their pacemakers were sabotaged by some electromagnetic disturbance. Before you can wonder whether there are 32 people in any 10-mile radius equipped with pacemakers, we head to London, where violent bird swarms wreak havoc in some kind of organized salute to Alfred Hitchcock.

It seems the two events are connected. The Earth's core has stopped spinning and that's bad news even if you don't have a pacemaker. A U.S. Army general (veteran character actor Richard Jenkins, hilariously hamming it up) tells Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) to do something about it. ``Can't,'' Keyes says. ``That word is not in my vocabulary,'' the general responds. ``Then you'd better get one of those word-a-day calendars, general.''

But the Americans aren't going to let a pesky little thing like imminent extinction get them down, and soon they're sending a band of glorified repairmen to look under the Earth's hood and nuke the problem. The hearty band of troopers includes scientists Keyes and the preening Conrad Zimsky (Stanley Tucci, whose hairpiece is the movie's best special effect), a French atomic weapons expert (Tcheky Karyo), another wacky scientist (Delroy Lindo) and a couple of earnest astronauts (Hilary Swank and Bruce Greenwood).

As one might expect, the journey to the center of the Earth has its share of obstacles. Fortunately, back in the sunlight, the team has a computer hacker named Rat (the incomparable DJ Qualls) to feed them information, provided he has an ``unlimited supply of 'Xena' tapes and Hot Pockets.'' ``Xena''?

Obviously you're not meant to take any of this seriously. (Right?) Still, in these troubled times, it's just not as much fun as it used to be to watch major cities like Rome and San Francisco bite the dust. It might help if undistinguished director Jon Amiel had managed to inject a smidgen of tension to go along with all the intentional or unintentional stupidity or if the film's effects team had come up with something better than what looks like an overheated lava lamp to pass off as the Earth's mantle.

But then, we can be thankful that the hokum is kept to a minimum, which makes ``The Core'' a friendlier place to spend time than the twin asteroid movies ``Deep Impact'' and ``Armageddon.'' There are no laborious subplots here, no healing of wounds, no family pets making miraculous escapes from fireballs. Nope, just a group of pretty talented actors hamming it up as if their lives - and the fate of the world - depended on it.

THE CORE - Two stars

(PG-13: sci-fi death situations, and brief strong language)

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci.

Director: Jon Amiel.

Running time: 2 hr. 15 min.

Playing: Wide release.

In a nutshell: Engagingly idiotic disaster movie that we're not supposed to take seriously. We think.