The plot being that in the near future a major company will
be able to offer the wealthy a means to go back in time to hunt dinosaurs that
have been selected for termination due to the fact that the travelers kill them
at the time that they were going to originally die so the future doesn't
change. Well, one goofball client steps off their designated path and kills a
butterfly. Once they return to the future, massive waves of paradoxes alter the
world and the natural evolution of the planet (meaning all kinds of nasty
creatures that should have died out long ago are still alive), and the heroes
must go back in time to fix what they screwed up.
It's pretty convoluted, but it's easy to follow. It starts
off decent with the set-up of the story and all the characters (or caricatures
if you really want to be cruel), but once we are shown the second trip into the
past things start to get stupid. Well, for starters we see the main characters
take a trip back in time to kill an allosaurus and succeed without a hitch.
Then the second time they travel back in time with new clients they hunt the
same allosaurus, and kill it at the exact same time as their past selves did,
but their past selves are nowhere to be seen. They should have run into
themselves dozens of times over since they've been doing this for years. It's
pretty lame.
The script, while at times tries to be clever and
intelligent, ends up using every trick in the book to manipulate us into liking
these characters. Of course the black dude is the first to die, and even though
he wasn't really developed enough for us to give a crap about him we're still
treated to an extended death scene (where he's eaten by ape-lizards) to MAKE us
feel sorry for him. Sorry, it didn't work.
It's the same for all the other character who are cliches
across the board. There's the gruff yet loyal chief scientist (played very
badly by Edward Burns), the bitchy scientist who hates the whole idea of time
travel (played well enough by Catherine McCormack), and their eccentric boss who
is all about the benjamins (played haplessly by Sir Ben Kingsley who seems to
enjoy slumming in roles in Thunderbirds and Bloodrayne). There are a few
other main characters but they are never given any development at all, so I
won't go into detail about them here.
The special effects are absolutely horrid! I'm talking the
kind of CGI you'd expect to see in pre-Terminator 2 movies. The CGI creatures
are jerky, badly rendered and have what looks like a layer of static across
them that make it hard for us to see in any real detail. They aren't even
blended into the shots very well making them stand out for the chunks of dog
shit they are. On top of that, whenever there's an outdoor scene that involves
characters walking around in the futuristic version of Chicago it is painfully
obvious that they are on a treadmill in front of a greenscreen. The CG
backdrops look like a PS1 game and the actors aren't lit correctly, thus making
it look like they're on a soundstage instead of a real location. It's total
poo.
The only FX that I actually enjoyed were the time waves and
how they are shown as a pseudo-bullet time effect. There are some moments of
fun action (the car/huge bat chase), but they are few and far between and not
enough to make me recommend this flick.
Director Peter Hyams really needs to retire. He's made some
entertaining movies in the past (2010, Outland, TimeCop), but the movies
he's made during the last 10 years have been garbage at best (The Musketeer, End of Days, Sudden Death, The Relic) and it doesn't look like that going
to change anytime soon. Give it up dude, you had your day and it's long gone.
The only sound A Sound of Thunder makes is a huge resounding THUD! It's a loud, drawn out and ultimately
worthless sci-fi romp into stupidity. View it at your own risk. Your brain
cells will thank you if you avoid it.
0.5 out of 5
*written 3/30/06
*written 3/30/06
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