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A Sound Of Thunder (Mark's Take)
01/10/2005 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 
Based on a famous story by Ray Bradbury, this film will be a real disappointment for its lack of logic and even the misunderstanding of the original story. As an action film without the logic it is only fair. Peter Hyams is good at making sci-fi, but is not very good with science fiction. Buy A Sound Of Thunder in the USA - or Buy A Sound Of Thunder in the UK  Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) or 4/10
A science fiction film about a new and original idea can be quite good. But when a film is based on a very popular or classic science fiction story, watch out. It is very hard to adapt a classic story without disappointing the fans who made the story popular. A typical example (okay, my best) is the film NIGHTFALL based on the classic Isaac Asimov story. The film is terrible. THE COLD EQUATIONS and DUNE are other good examples of films simply not meeting the expectations of the fans.
The story of THE SOUND OF THUINDER, as any science fiction fan worth his salt will already know, involves a future when time travel has become commercial but is heavily regulated. Why is it regulated? Any change to the past affects the future in ways that cannot be predicted. Hunters are allowed to go into the past to shoot dinosaurs as big game, but they can kill only dinosaurs that are fated to die in the next few seconds anyway. A special pathway keeps the time travelers off the ground so not even a plant is damaged. In the story, of course, the precautions prove insufficient and the future is subtly altered.
A team of three writers, not counting Ray Bradbury, has written a full-length film on this premise and Peter Hyams has directed that script. Though the logic of the original story is a long way from being airtight, the film's logic is far more specious. Different hunting parties come to the same dinosaur and the same interval of time, yet do not seem to run into each other.
Using the same set and the same dinosaur makes great budgetary logic but little logic logic. Apparently they are coming back to different layers of the past, but then later in the film a character goes back in time and meets members from another group. So the concept is inconsistent.
In the film an altered past does not simply alter the future. The changes hit the future in tidal waves that come hours apart and each brings major changes to the future. Further the waves affect things at higher and higher "levels" and humans are at the top level. So humans will not be eliminated until the sixth wave. Until then they will see the world change from the first five waves of temporal change. This balderdash makes no sense at all and seems a very anthropocentric view of the universe. This turns a story that may have had a problem or two into a feature- length absurdity.
Politically correct plot lines pad the short story into a longer length--and in this film the original story is only the jumping off point for the plot of the scientists trying to correct the waves of temporal errors. Part of the padding is to create a nefarious villain - white, male, old, and greedy - and the unrewarded genius that gave him his power - female, sexy, and young. One of the team sacrifices his life. Want to guess what race he is? For a science fiction script there is a distinct lack of imagination and much of the film simply covers tired material.
Visually some of the future is nice to look at. Sid Mead who is best known for his futurist contributions to BLADERUNNER has a nice visualization of the future. Cars really look different. However some of his scenery just looks like rear-projection rather than really a location the characters inhabit. When the dinosaur walks the ground really shakes. It is not at all clear a dinosaur even this size could shake the ground so much.
An alternate history creature created for the film is an unlikely cross between animals of two different orders. Ben Kingsley does a nice turn as an evil industrialist in an industry that has not been invented yet. But Edward Burns is not the stuff of heroes. The short story that this film is based on can be recommended, but spending ten dollars to see this adaptation cannot.
A SOUND OF THUNDER rates 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10.
Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper
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