A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: A Sound of Thunder

Date Viewed: 9/3/05

Details:

Edward Burns

Catherine McCormack

Ben Kingsley

Directed & photographed by: Peter Hyams

Score: -

The Review: Wins the AAA ("annual amplification award") for the transformation of a 13-page short story into a feature-length science fiction movie. But if you're going to do something like this, please learn from the lessons of the past: use something from Philip K. Dick, pick a director like Steven Spielberg (Minority Report) or Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), and buy a good screen treatment, a very good treatment. Sound of Thunder had none of these, and should soon fade into well-justified obscurity.

Although "based on" the 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder goes far beyond the scope of that script -- losing the pun of the final O'Henry-like sentence -- throws into the mix some ideas from Gordon Dickson (1977's Time Storm), the recent (although I've not read them) time-scramble series hosted by Arthur C. Clarke, and adds some evolutionary fantasy to create something not worth spending time to figure out. At its base a time-travel paradox story, the rewrite tries to fix the anomaly created when visitors from 2055 go hunting dinosaurs in the Cretaceous and accidentally don't follow the rules, unleashing a temporal cascade.

Burdened with a host of problems: poor dubbing or over-recording at the beginning; static and decidedly not awe-inspiring matte backgrounds; the waste of an otherwise good actor (Kingsley); and curious but biologically nonsensical evolutionary fantasy critters (except for the penultimate 200-millisecond shot of Catherine McCormack's character, which was quite intriguing). If this is an audition for Syd Mead Inc ("Future Design" as cited in the credits), they should definitely not be engaged in future enterprises. Done on the cheap in Chicago and Prague, Czech Republic. Not recommended.

(3-Sep-05)

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