A Sound of Thunder (2005)

User Rating:

4.1/10   

Director:

Peter Hyams

Writers (WGA):

Ray Bradbury (short story)
Thomas Dean Donnelly (screen story) ...

Release Date:

2 September 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Evolve or die.

Plot:

When a hunter sent back to the prehistoric era runs off the path he must not leave, he causes a chain reaction that alters history in disastrous ways. |

Plot Keywords:

Prehistoric | Evolution | Zoologist | Insect | Jump From Height

Cast

Armin Rohde	...	John Wallenbeck (as Armin Rhode)
Heike Makatsch	...	Alicia Wallenbeck
Jemima Rooper	...	Jenny Krase
David Oyelowo	...	Payne
Wilfried Hochholdinger	...	Dr. Lucas
Edward Burns	...	Travis Ryer
August Zirner	...	Clay Derris
Ben Kingsley	...	Charles Hatton (as Sir Ben Kingsley)
Catherine McCormack	...	Sonia Rand
Alvin Van Der Kuech	...	Young Technician
Andrew Blanchard	...	George the Doorman
William Armstrong	...	Ted Eckles
Corey Johnson	...	Christian Middleton
Nikita Lespinasse	...	Newswoman on TV (as Nikita Le Spinasse)
Scott Bellefeville	...	Onlooker (as Scott Bellefeuille)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence, partial nudity and language.

Runtime:

USA:110 min

Country:

UK | USA | Germany | Czech Republic

Language:

English | Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | Canada:14A (British Columbia/Manitoba) | Canada:PG (Alberta/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Philippines:PG-13 | Australia:M | Czech Republic:15 | Malaysia:U | Finland:K-15 | Iceland:12 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #40964) | Argentina:16 | Germany:12 | South Korea:12 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Czech Republic

Company:

Franchise Pictures

Trivia:

Renny Harlin was fired from the production, because he made a creative decision that made Ray Bradbury very unhappy, and this film's producers decided to support Ray Bradbury.

Goofs:

Plot holes: Even with willing suspension of disbelief for all the time paradoxes, the moth that Middleton stepped on would have been destroyed by the volcano's pyroclastic flow without him stepping on it. The moth's destruction on the normal timeline was not disruptive.

Quotes:

Travis Ryer: Some things to remember us by: A safari suit, boots, helmet and a holo-disk so you can relive the jump. And I suggest you take an especially close look at this disk, Mr. Wallenbeck.
John Wallenbeck: Why's that?
Travis Ryer: Well I can't be certain until I review it myself, however, I'm pretty sure it was your shot that brought him down.
John Wallenbeck: [laughs] Well, yeah.

Movie Connections:

References Capricorn One (1977)

Every bit as bad as the bad reviews have claimed.

USAToday.com called it: "A story that is a pale imitation of a Michael Crichton novel." The Los Angeles Times said: "The picture looks as murky as its story line… and most everything on the screen looks patently fake." CNN.com remarked: "'Sound of Thunder,' smell of garbage." But Variety.com summed it up nicely: "Every bit as bad as advance buzz has indicated..." And then some. I first heard about this movie prior to its release on TVGuide.com's "Coming Soon" section. The single-sentence description suggesting a plot around time traveling safaris for the sole purpose of killing a Tyrannosaurus Rex that was going to die anyhow just seemed, well… a bit loopy, at least for a major motion picture. So I read the short story by Ray Bradbury, upon which the movie was supposedly based and, even though I had a hard time visualizing such a story expanded to 2 hours of running and screaming on the big screen, hoped for the best. After hearing and reading all of the dramatically poor reviews by movie critics and fans alike, curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to know if it was really that bad. It is. It is every bit as bad. In fact, a half-hour into the film, I was completely alone, free to yawn, stretch, scream at the top of my lungs and move about the theater. The basic premise is relatively simple, as it was a short story to begin with. In the year 2055, time travel has been patented by a greedy businessman played by none other than Sir Ben Kingsley (as he's credited), sporting a white wig that one movie critic likened to a lump of cotton candy, and yet another likened to a massive White Persian cat perched atop his head. I prefer the latter analogy. Time Safari, Inc. offers rich people a chance to travel 65 million years into the past to kill – not hunt – dinosaurs already predestined to die at the same place and time. As long as the merry band of time travelers remains on a path resembling transparent liquid metal that hovers above the terrain and do not interfere with the environment in any way, history and evolution as we know it are still preserved. Of course, the rigid controls supposed to be in effect are futile against a cowardly inept rich snob who carelessly stomps on a butterfly. The Butterfly Effect is, of course, the theory that maintains that a butterfly's wings flapping on one side of the earth could eventually cause a hurricane thousands of miles away. In the movie, the effect causes ripples in time, i.e. a tidal wave in the form of a series of 'Time Waves' that exactly resemble and mimic the aquatic version, visibly sweeping over the Windy City at distant intervals and knocking the main characters around in Matrix-like slow motion shots. Immediately following each successive time wave, hideous distortions abound in the form of primordial and deadly vegetation, half-primate, half-reptilian creatures with the need to feed (on humans), giant reptilian bats, and not to be outdone, a brief cameo by the man-eating scarab beetles of 'The Mummy' fame. Seriously. But enough about the pathetically stupid script. I wanted to know if the special effects were really as bad as people claimed. At one point, the camera tracks the two main stars, Edward Burns and Catherine McCormack, as they cross a busy futuristic street in one of the worst on-screen examples of green-screen effects I have ever witnessed in a big budget movie. I can't readily explain it with words – when you see it, you're simply distracted by how fake it is… the rendering, even the lighting contrast. In another reckless green-screen scene, Burns and co-star Jemima Rooper, whose native British accent keeps resurfacing throughout the movie, are supposed to be walking along a sidewalk and immersed in conversation, but are instead spitting out stupid dialogue while obviously stationary on a moving walkway. I can forgive Hitchcock for using the same technique in two uniquely suspenseful scenes in 'North by Northwest' and 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' – back in 1959 and 1956! This was just plain shameful. Let me summarize my beef with the special effects. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do it (all of the time). Filmmakers should know when a CGI shot is artistically necessary and when some sense of realism should have precedence. I'm literally sick and tired of fake cities, fake explosions, fake skies, fake planes, trains and automobiles, even fake people, all rendered in fake CGI. It's distracting, as if the movie in question even needed more, given the clumsy and muddled script. In this case, the effects were either on par or well below what you would typically see on the made-for-TV garbage regularly broadcast by the SciFi channel, and I don't feel I'm exaggerating in the least. It's as if someone pulled the plug on the computers before rendering was completed. In Sum, 'A Sound of Thunder' is every bit as bad as the bad reviews have claimed. The script is stupid. The effects are deplorable. The acting? Who cares. It may not be nearly as bad as ''Manos' The Hands of Fate,' but I would definitely consider it to be the worst movie of 2005 (thus far), and the worst movie I ever paid to see in a theater. P.S. At one point, Sir Ben Kingsley makes a rather timely comment, in fact the only piece of dialogue I managed to retain after walking away from the theater. Referring to bureaucrats and the bureaucratic process and how slow they are to move, he says something to the effect that if one of them was to fall from a window, it would take a week before one would hit the ground.