A Sound of Thunder

RATING:

Starring: Edward Burns, Catherine McCormack, Ben Kingsley, Jemima Rooper, David Oyelow. Written by Josh Oppenheimer, Thomas Dean Donnelly, Greg Poirier. Directed by Peter Hyams.

Rated PG-13 - for sci-fi violence, partial nudity and language.

It was with great trepidation and severe anxiety that I approached the theatre playing “A Sound of Thunder”, the new Edward Burns/Ben Kingsley sci-fi adventure. The back story behind this film’s production history was cause enough for concern. The road to release for this film could only be described as rocky. Based on an original short story by Ray Bradbury, this movie was to be directed originally by Renny Harlin (Cutthroat Island, Cliffhanger) but he was fired from the production after insisting on removing one of the most important elements of the plot (it concerns a butterfly). He then went on to grace the world with “Mindhunters”. Stalwart hack director Peter Hyams (End of Days, Capricorn One) took over the reins and guided “A Sound of Thunder” to about 6 different release dates that I know of. I had the opportunity to interview Sir Ben Kingsley at a junket for the upcoming Roman Polanski version of “Oliver Twist” this past weekend and the only thing he had to say when asked about “Sound” was, “Oh yes, the Ray Bradbury film, yes.” He then scurried/was escorted out of the room quickly. But every movie deserves the opportunity to be seen and judged on its own merits (if any) no matter what has been said or written about it in the past. Besides that, I pretty much go and review what they tell me to go and review, so off to the theatre I went to witness the cinematic marvel that is “A Sound of Thunder”.

To be perfectly clear, that last description of the film is drenched in sarcasm. This movie, for lack of a better word, is horrendous. For the life of me, I can’t possibly understand what any of the filmmakers were thinking at any point in the production process of this hot mess. The story was originally published in Colliers magazine in 1952 and later in Bradbury’s anthologies R is For Rocket and Golden Apples of the Sun. Do yourself a huge favor – do not bother with this sorry waste of an hour and 40 minutes - go back and read the original short story and call it a wrap. The premise of the story is amazingly clever and thought provoking. The story takes place in the year 2055 in a striving to look futuristic Chicagoland. A company called Time Safari Inc. has cornered the lucrative market of time travel and offers pricey prehistoric hunting adventures to bored rich people. These would-be adventurers are of course portrayed as spoiled nincompoops who would probably be better off dealing with their inadequacies in the here and now rather than squaring off against a pea-brained Allosaurus destined to be trapped in a bog pit. Utilizing everything from Chaos Theory, The Butterfly Effect to Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty, the story unfolds as one of these “time jumps” goes awry. Something is brought back that shouldn’t be brought back and it causes evolution to run off its tracks. Ecological and environmental catastrophes ensue and it’s up to an intrepid group of doctors and technicians to not only figure out what went wrong at the jump, they must also survive an increasingly hostile new world filled with voracious plant life and various and sundry new predators.

That sounds like the makings of a good movie doesn’t it? It was probably pitched as “It’s “Jurassic Park” times “The Time Machine” divided by “Survivor”!!!”. Everything that happened on this film after that initial pitch was a mistake -- including the casting. Sir Ben Kingsley is wasted and slumming here as Time Safari Inc CEO Charles Hatton. His character has no scientific expertise whatsoever but is perfectly capable of exploiting it for capitalistic gains. He steals the largely untested technology that makes the time jumps possible from a physicist played by Catherine McCormack. The audience I was with burst out laughing at the first sighting of him in his bleached white wig and peculiar facial hair. His line readings all sound as if they’re based on a dare and I got the feeling his presence here had something to do with owing Malcolm McDowell a favor. Sir Ben probably gave up the fight during the first week of shooting and resigned himself to cashing his check, as this portrayal is a most unsexy beast.

Ed Burns plays Dr. Travis Ryer – a role Pierce Brosnan was slated to play and boy oh boy, did 007 dodge a major bullet. Ryer thinks time travel is safe enough and he leads the expeditions in order to gather valuable scientific research. It’s implied from the beginning that this is a very intelligent man. How he could not have foreseen the imminent disaster is just one of a series of lame plot holes. None of this is Burns’ fault -- his performance isn’t that bad -- it’s actually a lot better than this film deserves. It’s just that he has no support from the director, the ghastly visual effects or the crappy dialogue. By the fourth time he yells “Let’s get the hell outta here!” the fifth time he replies “I’ll find a way” and the singular moment he intones “It wasn’t a bug that was stepped on – it was evolution.” -- Burns must have fired his agent about 10 times.

Catherine McCormack (Braveheart, Dangerous Beauty) fares no better as the brilliant and angry physicist who invented the actual time travel technology and warned all of her peers of the inherent dangers. She of course is dismissed like Cassandra at the Oracle and she’s none too happy about it. She must band with Ryer and his team and proposes a way to undo the damage that’s been done. Ms. McCormack is a lovely and talented actor but she maintains a haggard countenance throughout the film and her particular light is not allowed to shine as she stomps into parties spraying red wine all over the guests. She’s like a mad genius/PETA activist who’s just a stitch in time away from climbing a clock tower while strapped to an AK. McCormack is able to redeem herself somewhat in the later action sequences but it’s far too little, far too late.

Words cannot express the sheer agony of having to view the film’s “special” effects. They are literally the most torturous I’ve seen in this day and age. One of the explanations behind the myriad release date changes was the old saw of “taking the necessary time to fix the effects”. Visual Effects Supervisor Tim McGovern should be forced to give back the Oscar he won for “Total Recall” and go back to the beginning perhaps starting someplace like Blue Screen 101. These visuals make “Clash of the Titans” look like the Battle of Helm’s Deep. Seriously, the effects couldn’t look worse if Ray Harryhausen literally photographed his own fingers moving his clay models frame by frame. Once the repto-primate-beasto predators showed up, I was ready to hurl my Diet Coke at the screen. Robert Rodriguez could have taken the 80 million dollars rumored to be this film’s budget and created 3 films that would have looked a heck of a lot better than this. They would probably manage to be mildly entertaining as well.

In short, there’s nothing to recommend seeing this movie. Avoid it at all costs. Do not rent or purchase the DVD and treat it like the plague when/if it comes to cable and network television. There should be a new category for this flick: STT or Straight-to-Toilet. If for some reason you still end up catching one meager portion of this torture, then think of me as Cassandra and remember, you’ve been warned.