All images on this page were borrowed from the The Core DVD.
Fred Ewanuick in The Core (2003)
The Core is a movie about a team that sets out to restart the Earth's inner core, which has suddenly stopped rotating. If the core were not restarted within three months, life on earth would have come to an end as holes in the Earth's magnetic sphere would have opened up (or something like that), allowing the sun's deadly rays to enter and fry the Earth to a crisp. A team of astronauts, geophysicists, and other smart people navigate a custom-built vehicle down through the Earth directly to the inner core and jump-start the core with a series of nuclear bombs. Their journey is ultimately successful despite the loss of all but two team members (the "best looking" man and the only woman among them, of course), and the world is saved.
All fine and dandy, but where is Fred in it all? As far as I can tell, he appears in only one scene and his lines are comprised of a grand total of four, count 'em, four words.
Fred plays the role of a flight engineer monitoring communications with a space shuttle, appearing in the third scene of the movie ("Endeavour Landing"). The Endeavour space shuttle is coming in for a landing, and tensions rise as communication with the shuttle is momentarily disrupted. Hear him say his lines while looking at a couple of screenshots from the movie (the only view/angle that I know of in which Fred appears):
To his credit, Fred seems not to have taken his mini-role for granted and instead made the most of his role which, unfortunately and through no fault of his own, really is not much more than a glorified extra. Specifically, I'm impressed with how subtle changes in his facial expression make it obvious which of the two screenshots above was taken while communications are lost, and which was taken after communications were restored.
In short, it was an ok movie (this coming from someone who's really not into special effect / action movies), but if the only reason you're thinking of renting it is to see Fred, don't get your hopes up as his appearance is very brief. In fact, I'm ashamed to admit that the first time I watched the movie, I completely missed his appearance despite being specifically on the lookout for him (some fan I am!). The fact that his voice in this movie sounds nothing like his voice in other appearances didn't help me notice him either. Luckily, the film's credits list the cast in order of appearance, so by noting where his name showed up on the list I was able to go back and find him.
Of note, Fred's last name is spelled "Ewanvick" in the credits:
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