Based on the Ray Bradbury short story of the same name, today we saw A Sound of Thunder which chronicles the events of a future world (2055) where time travel is possible via a company called Time Safari. Futuristic big game hunting is allowed by “jumping” back through time 65 million years ago and shooting a dinosaur. There are a couple rules to follow like: don’t go off the path, don’t leave anything behind and don’t take anything with you. The premise of the story is someone brings something back, unintentionally, which alters the future in future altering “time waves.”

These time waves create numerous plausibility problems particularly in the ending, which I won’t ruin here, but suffice to say that throughout most of the movie we are meant to believe the time changes are not immediate and take place gradually through the time waves and the ending alters this framework. Disappointing.

The last short story turned movie that I remember seeing was Stephen King’s The Langoliers which also coincidentally had to do with time travel. I liked King’s story which was more of a novella than a short story. I didn’t care for Maximum Overdrive (nor did most the movie viewing public) which came from King’s most excellent short story: Trucks.

I’m fascinated by time travel stories and I vividly recall reading Ray Bradbury’s short story. A Sound of Thunder does a pretty good job of taking that story and blowing it up into a longer work, if you are into that sort of thing. Rotten Tomatoes critics hate this movie and think it is an abomination. The creature portions of the movie reminded me a bit of Jurassic Park. I didn’t realize anybody was even making this story into a longer motion picture, but the short story that had already been adapted to Ray Bradbury Theater, got a much better special effect treatment. The special effect in the Ray Bradbury Theater version (available via DVD) show cheesy looking dinosaurs. The creaters in Thunder don’t look as good as Jurassic Park but they are more believable. You can tell there is a better budget for this film.

The acting is not great, but it’s decent, and there is no love interest really which is unfortunate. It is hard to really care for any of these characters, including the scientist who says he is just helping the greedy Time Safari owner to be able to find a way to bring back the animals that have all been killed off. Another plausibility hole, if there are no animals, then isn’t our future already doomed? If you can get by with plot irritations like this and just enjoy the popcorn thrills you’ll enjoy Thunder. My wife can’t stand sci-fi films so she was underwhelmed with the film. Me? Seen better and seen worse. If you like the original Bradbury short story and always wished there was more to the story than what was seen in the Bradbury Theater version and short story, then you’ll probably enjoy this one. Still, I’d wait for the DVD version or hit the matinee. Do not pay full price to see this. Grade: C+

Did this post make you go hmm?

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