A Sound of Thunder



I wonder what the deal is with Franchise Pictures. Take a look at this list of their films. These people appear to go out of their way to produce dreck with faded talent. Are they a tax write-off for the mob?

That brings me to A Sound of Thunder, the new movie based on the (very) short story by Ray Bradbury. That story was more of story kernel than a fully fledged narrative, basically an excuse to explore the then original idea that time travelers who made a small, seemingly inconsequential change in the past could cause big changes to the present they return to. Fair enough. It didn’t really make sense if you thought about it to much (c.f. Asimov’s Grandfather Paradox), but Bradbury was smart enough to throw in a dinosaur, andtoday the story is considered a classic.



The movie version is very, very bad. Obviously Bradbury’s tiny story would have to be expanded to be a full movie, and there are certainly ways to do it. But the script for A Sound of Thunder just throws around ideas and plot developments without thinking about how they relate to each other.

Like the story the movie centers on a company that sends hunting safaris of the ultra-rich back in time to the age of the dinosaurs. What’s odd is that in the movie they are always hunting the same dinosaur at the exact same moment. The movie doesn’t explain why the many hunting parties don’t run into each other, and that’s a rather important point, especially because at the end of the movie our hero (a hunky scientist played by Edward Burns) travels back to that same moment and encounters the safari that changed the future. This is the kind script that can only exist if the screenwriters simply assume their audience is stupid and will shut off their brains the second a science fiction concept is introduced.



There may be some validity to that, if the rest of the action is diverting. That isn’t the case with A Sound of Thunder. After a time safari goes wrong and “time waves” begin to transform the present into something new, our main characters run around the increasingly junglefied city trying to find the rich men who were on the safari. The rationale is that our heroes need to find what it is was changed in the past – but why does it matter? Wouldn’t it make far more sense to just go back and see for themselves? Or just meet the safari as it comes out of the time portal and tell it to go back? We know they could, because that’s essentially what they do. Also, the creatures called into existence by the time ripples aren’t that interesting. There are some dino-baboons, some bats-of-unusual-size, and a largish reptilian eel. That’s it. Back in Harryhausen’s day these creatures would have been pretty impressive, but today we expect more. Even that crappy comedy Evolution (2001) had the ambition to throw tons of interesting creatures up on the screen.

On the subject of a lack of ambition, A Sound of Thunder is so cliché that the black guy dies first. That really bothers me now. That particular horror movie convention has been commented on and parodied so many times that you’d think that any self-respecting producer would be just flat-out embarrassed to include it.

I really shouldn’t forget to mention that Ben Kingsley embarrasses himself in a supporting role as the weasel CEO of the time safari company. Seriously, do I have to take up a collection to keep talented actors from appearing in movies like this? Not only has Kingsley decided to destroy his legacy with this movie, he also has a major role in Uwe Boll's upcoming Bloodrayne. C'mon, Ben. You're old enough that you need to start taking your own mortality into account. Raul Julia's last movie was Street Fighter (1994). You don't want to go out on a movie based on a video game too.

Posted: Mon - September 12, 2005 at      

©