AllMovie

As far as disaster movies go, this one certainly is. A disaster, that is. If you thought stagy, cheesy, special-effects laden camp-o-ramas went out with The Towering Inferno and The Hindenberg, check out this '70s-era throwback. One wonders how many leading men passed on this script before it got to Craig Sheffer, who has lost his edge since making such an impression as evil incarnate in 1994's The Road Killers. There is one scene where Sheffer's goody-goody scientist Goodman (even his name is campy) reads a newspaper headline in Mexico and bolts from the room; in the very next shot he's in the same clothes, apparently on the same day, thousands of miles away marching into Morrisey's office. But that's nothing compared to the scene where the amazing digging vehicle surfs the waves of Earth's molten magma. There are things to like in Deep Core, but not many. Terry Farrell is a likeable female lead in the smoldering Veronica Hamel mold; Harry Van Gorkum doesn't junk up his villain Morrisey with hokum, and actually becomes heroic; and Bruce McGill is a delight as the blue-collar genius who acts like saving the world is something he does regularly. Viewers who don't think too hard and can accept the cartoony computer-generated effects might find Deep Core mildly diverting. Just don't dig too deeply.