A Sound of Thunder (2005)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

not as good as all the hype

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Why do I like cheesy sci-fi movies like this? OK, why did I like this one? Yes, of course, it didn't make sense -- but to be honest, I didn't care. It started off sensibly enough, but then as it progressed they just added more craziness. First the time waves. Then the killer jungle. Then the lizard-apes. Then the other flying and swimming dinosaurs. Wow. It didn't matter to me that the FX were not that great. They were good enough.It was so...over the top. I mean the fabric of time has been ripped, and yet we're still following eye-candy Travis bravely and stalwartly lead his group through it all. How on earth are they going to get the machine working again? They created the disaster of all disasters, but how on earth were they going to get out of it? For some reason, I wanted to know. And what was with the hysterical characters? "Don't blame me for this!" What on earth was Ben Kingsley doing in this movie. So many unanswered questions.

Now I do not mind low budget movies with bad scripts and bad special effects. They can be pretty funny. But this one is not a low budget. I really can not understand why they didn't pull the plug halfway the making of the movie seeing it was becoming...what was it becoming? A joke, a disaster? This movie is a bigger disaster than what is happening in the movie. You start hoping that it does come true and mankind is whipped out before it can make something like this. I truly admire Ray Bradbury, I read much of his work. He did the right thing, when the hunting party returned they found out something had changed, of course the people who stayed in the present didn't notice, only the time travelers). Then Ryan shoots Eckels for leaving the path (that is the sound of thunder). Now in Hollywood this story is too short so they had to make it a bit longer. They invented the time waves that gradually change everything and of course it does result in evil monsters.Now I can also start about the special effects, which are in most cases a joke but never mind. If you want to show how a good story can be turned into utter movie garbage, this will be a classic example

Based on the late Ray Bradbury's short story of a time-travel big-game hunting business that has some unfortunate effects on time itself, is adapted poorly here, with only co-star(and former Academy Award winner) Ben Kingsly giving a fine performance, as the head of the company behind the time-travel excursions of "time tourists", who want to hunt and kill dinosaurs(!) but instead quite literally prove the "Butterfly Effect", that is if you change one thing in the past, everything changes. That is certainly demonstrated here! Pity this film is so illogical, both within conventional time-travel theory, but even within itself. How can they keep going back to the same point in time, and not encounter themselves, since the dinosaur kill is a fixed point in time? Yet, the whole premise of the film has them frantically trying to do just that, in order to put things back to normal, and restore their time line! It makes no sense. Substandard F/X as well, since this sat on the shelf unfinished for years after the production company went bankrupt!

As a teenager I remember reading the short story A Sound Of Thunder by Ray Bradbury . It's a science fiction revolving around chaos theory and the butterfly effect where time travel is possible and an industry of hunting dinosaurs tens of millions in the past is a once in a lifetime thrill for the exclusively mega-rich . This leads to time being changed subtly but ultimately disasterously for humanity where a war mongering fascist leader is elected and with him the probability of thermo nuclear war It's one of these short stories that exists due to the twist ending . Try and think of THE TWILIGHT ZONE with a downbeat ending . One problem I had with the internal logic with the story is that even if time travel was possible - and the scientific community are certain that time travel is forever impossible - then would anyone allow it to happen preciselyfor the reasons pointed out in the story ? You know you step on a butterfly and next thing you know humanity ends in a big puff of smoke The film version of A SOUND OF THUNDER pads out the premise of the original short story to feature length and the more it adds the more problematic everything becomes on a logical level . Expeditions to a point in time where a dinosaur is about to die in an exact point in timewill immediately lead you to ask is there actually a market in this . You turn up with the Jurrasic period and shoot a giant reptile which only has seconds to live anyway . Is this worth the astronomical fee you'll be expected to pay ? So apart from the illogical nature of the original short story the film version heaps on more and more implausible aspects of its own But it's not the narrative that has come in on for major criticism on this website , it's the production values . Some quotes state that this movie cost $80 million to make . One wonders if someone either stuck a zero on the end , or if Ben Kingsley is the highest paid movie star in history or if someone simply deposited most of the budget in to a Swiss bank account because the money is nowhere to be seen on screen . People may point out that the dino-baboon hybrids ( Yeah I know these hybrids don't make sense ) or the dino-sharks are totally unconvincing but they're adequate compared to the laughable scenes midway through the film where people walk around a city of the future . Let me elaborate: two characters are supposedly walking along a city but it's obvious that the sequence is achieved by the actors being in front of back projection . It's not even blue-screen it's back projection as you see in films from the first half of the 20th Century and the perspective isn't even in a convincing aspect ratio . What makes all of this even more laughable in that it's obvious that the actors are walking on the spot ! Is this a sophisticated post modernist joke ? If you see any hint of sophistication let me know what scene it appeared in One could perhaps be more forgiving since A SOUND OF THUNDER was supposedly beset by production problems from the outset but even so a film like HEAVENS GATE still contains some memorable imagery and sequences . Watching A SOUND OF THUNDER you're continually scratching your head wondering where the budget went to . If this was a $1 million production by The Asylum or The SyFy Channel then it'd be merely average . Looking on the bright side it's a film seldom seen which will be of great consolation to everyone who worked on this turkey