Plot hole: When they come up with the idea of setting off the 5 bombs separately, there is a computer screen showing a picture of the Earth and the shock waves starting and interfering with each other. Each shock wave starts off from a different point - they are separated by at least 2000 km. But when they are dropping the bombs, they manage to drop them all within 2 hours (judging by the timer that they set on the first bomb). How did they manage to travel 10000 km in 2 hours?
Audio problem: When the man in the car on the Golden Gate Bridge gets crushed, you can hear him screaming, but his reflection in the rear-view mirror shows that his mouth is closed.
Character mistake: When Rat is in the Cyber Cafe, just after he has pressed enter on his computer to send the file "unsung heroes.doc" over the Internet, the message "on it's way" appears on the computer screen, but the correct message would be "on its way."
Factual error: The view of the Earth at the end of the movie while the credits are rolling shows a sunrise line advancing in a direction that appears to be east south-east.
Factual error: While in the giant geode, the inflowing magma is referred to as lava. It is only lava when it is erupted onto the surface of the earth. In any case the mantle is nowhere near as liquid as is shown, it is almost completely solid. (01:05:30)
Suggested correction: They were melting everything in front of them, and it would have stayed liquid for at least a bit after they passed. If they were near any magma flows near the geode, then it is possible that it would have flowed into the void.
Factual error: Rat and Josh are extremely smart. Both of them should know that 1 is not a prime number. (01:32:20)
Continuity mistake: When they are going to go aboard the ship, it's raining, but they aren't wet.
Continuity mistake: When Josh is demonstrating the effect of the sun on the unprotected earth, he sticks a fork in a peach, cooks the peach with a flame and we are shown how it is charred. Then when he goes to put the peach in a pitcher of water, the peach on his fork unburnt, but then it is burnt in the bottom of the pitcher. (00:25:55)
Continuity mistake: When Zimsky comes up with the plan, he's seen exhaling smoke from his cigarette. The camera angle changes and he exhales smoke again but he never took another drag from the cigarette. (01:35:33)
Suggested correction: If you don't fully exhale right away, there will be subsequent smoke if you breathe out again.
Character mistake: When Zimsky talks about using DESTINI again, he says something like "a shock can stop a heart, and it can also restart it." That is a fundamentally false assumption that TV and movies get wrong all the time. Once a heart has actually stopped you can never shock it back. You can only shock a heart that is out of normal rhythm.
Suggested correction: The premise is the core, like a heart, is still beating. A shock destabilizes the rhythm of the heart, and without further help, the heart will stop beating. Destini did this to the core by sending a shock and destabilizing the core and without help, the core would stop spinning. A shock to a destabilized heart can shock and restart the heart back to normal rhythm. That is the theory of Destini restarting the core. At no point has the core or the heart fully stopped or flatlined.
Factual error: In the manic pigeon scene in Trafalgar Square, pigeons possess neither the mass or velocity to shatter most of the glass panes they are hitting and smashing.
Revealing mistake: The underground crystal chamber is completely encased in a cobalt shell, yet a light source has to come from somewhere to allow all the crystals to reflect in the dark. The light from the ship wouldn't have been enough to make them all reflect and the magma had not yet breached the ceiling.
Suggested correction: The lights are bright enough. Standard headlights and flashlights easily light a couple hundred meters. The ship had numerous lights so this is easily feasible. Once the magma breached, then you could see even more.
Suggested correction: They have handheld flashlights that can easily hit between 1000 to 2000 meters. The lights from the ship would have been more than powerful enough to cause the crystals to reflect light.
Factual error: When they land the space shuttle in the river canal, they are approaching too low, so the commander commands to retract the gear. That would be impossible, as the landing gear of a space shuttle is controlled only by gravity. The gear can't be raised again after being deployed.
Suggested correction: The landing gears can be hydraulically retracted, per NASA.
Citation needed. NASA's website says "The nose and main landing gear can be retracted only during ground operations".
They're literally on the ground, hence ground operations.
Continuity mistake: After Beck gets her speech from the Commander, the team sees the high level static discharge in the sky and they run into the hanger to get more info. As they approach the main control area you see Serge being the first to get to the area using a napkin near his mouth, the Commander behind him and then Josh and then the others. The camera angle changes and the napkin Serge had is no longer there and somehow Josh is now in front of the Commander. (00:47:46)
Continuity mistake: After Josh's first meeting with Dr.Zimsky, he walks out of the room and passes another scientist. The camera angle changes and you see Josh walking by the same scientist again. (00:19:40)
Other mistake: At the end of the film when the carrier battle group is searching for the deep earth team the carrier captain is wearing a baseball cap which reads "CVN-72 USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN". In the credits he is described as "USS CONSTELLATION CAPTAIN" but in the acknowledgments it thanks the captain and crew of USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (01:55:45 - 02:03:45)
Suggested correction: It seems this mistake has more to it. Because there are no external shots showing exactly what carrier it is by the hull number, there is no way to tell on screen what ship it is, besides the radar dishes on top suggest it is a Kitty Hawk class carrier (so it's the Constellation). The end credits list both ships, but on screen they say it was the Lincoln, so the credits should say the USS Abraham Lincoln Captain. I don't know why they would credit the Lincoln crew if they only used the name on their ball caps.
Revealing mistake: When the ship breaks the wall outside the geode chamber we see the rock reform and harden as soon as the ship is through, so how could the magma leak into the geode if that rock had already hardened?
Suggested correction: Because the ship had weakened that spot of the outer shell enough that the magma pressure eventually punched through.
Factual error: The shuttle crashing into Los Angeles is shown flying toward the northeast, from over the ocean toward downtown. Coming down fast, it turns slightly and lands in the L.A. river. As it's coming down, it passes over Dodger Stadium, which is north of downtown, not between the ocean and the river, and faces away. For the shuttle to fly from the outfield toward home plate, it would have had to fly past the city and turned around, which according to the dialogue it didn't have the altitude to do.
Factual error: The Army officer is American, by the US pips on collar and American airborne on shoulders...yet he has Canadian Airborne Cherry Jumper jump wings on the right front breast. (00:05:57)
Factual error: At the end, the aircraft carrier is at flight quarters for SAR (Search And Rescue) operations. They would not let Rat, or anybody, walk around on the flight deck 1) without any protective equipment and 2) a civilian without some kind of escort.
