|
Movie Review - A Sound of Thunder (2005)
|
|
|
|
|
(What this rating means)
|
|
| |
|
| Director: |
Peter Hyams |
| Starring: |
Edward Burns, Ben Kingsley, and Catherine McCormack |
| Rated: |
PG-13 (for sci-fi violence, partial nudity and language) |
| Length: |
103 minutes |
| Genre: |
Action/Sci-Fi |
| Tagline: |
Evolve or die. |
| Studio: |
Warner Bros. |
| Website: |
A Sound of Thunder |
| Release: |
September 2, 2005 |
|
PLOT
|
Edward Burns is a scientist/game hunter who takes rich people on a time traveling safari and gives them
the opportunity to hunt dinosaurs. The rules are simple - leave everything the way it is, don't bring
anything back with you, and don't touch or disturb the surroundings. Of course, one of the clients
eventually breaks the rules - inadvertently stepping on a butterfly. This sets off a ridiculously
unbelievable set of events that drastically changes the future. Burns must find a way to travel back in
time at just the right spot to reverse what has happened and save humanity from an unfortunate fate.
One of the biggest wastes of $80 million EVER ensues.
|
|
JOHNNY'S TAKE
|
What exactly is the sound of thunder? If this movie is any indication then it's the sound of moviegoers
thundering towards the exit, demanding their money back. Yes, the movie is that bad.
"Hey Johnny, how bad is it?"
This movie is so bad that Ray Bradbury wishes he could invent a time machine so that he could go back in time
and NOT write the short story, thus preventing this movie from ever being made.
"Whoa, that bad?"
Worse. In fact, somebody better put Ray Bradbury on suicide watch because this movie is so bad that he might
consider killing himself just so he can roll over in his grave. I know you think I'm trying to be cute, but I'm
being serious. This was one of the strangest movie experiences I've had in quite a while. The problem is that
I went into the movie expecting to enjoy it. I thought it had the chance to be pretty good. So at the very
start I was trying to make excuses for what was unraveling on screen.
The first thing to induce unintentional laughter was the fact that Ben Kingsley (the owner of the
time traveling safari who's only interested in how much money he can make) looks like Bob Barker. Nice
poofy white wig, Ben. Oh well, no big deal, I can laugh that off. Then we're introduced to the first CGI
dinosaur of the movie. "Hmm, that sure looks really fake," I thought. "Oh, I know! It's supposed to be
fake. They're tricking the hunters into thinking the dinosaur is real, but it's mechanical or something."
Nope. Imagine my sheer horror when I came to the realization that the dinosaur was supposed to be
real. Wow. At this point I started to get nervous.
Then came the incredibly bad green screens. Folks, these are some of the worst green screens I've ever
seen. My words cannot do justice to how fake they looked. Some might even say they looked faker than those
things Pamela Anderson tries to pass off as breasts. When you can tell that the actors are walking on
a treadmill then you have serious issues that are long past addressing. I was absolutely shocked at what I
was witnessing. Honestly, I started to get confused and thought, "What in the world is going on? This
movie cost $80 million to make, there's no way it can look this bad."
Where there's a will, there's a way, and somebody must've had a strong will to make this as cheesy and
as goofy as they could because I cannot come up with any other explanation.
I actually like the concept of the movie - the butterfly effect - the theory that something as small as a
butterfly flapping its wings can produce long-term effects on a dynamical system. However, this movie
presents the theory in the most outlandish, most unbelievable way imaginable. Sorry, but I just didn't buy
it. One of the scientists in the movie argues that if you kill a bee, then that bee can't pollinate a
flower, and an animal will not be able to eat that flower, thus that animal will die and can cause damaging
long-term effects. Um, if "Flower A" never blossoms then an animal that's hungry will just go find "Flower
B" and eat that. I don't think the animal will immediately die AND CAUSE HUMANS TO TURN INTO ALIEN-LIKE
CREATURES!!! Come on.
So the movie decides to take the "butterfly effect" to the most extreme depths that it possibly can -
fine, whatever. What *really* bothered me is it doesn't care to explain why killing the butterfly resulted
in the world being taken over by horribly rendered CGI creatures. It would have at least been nice to have
an explanation as to why and how such drastic changes took place because of one simple butterfly.
The butterfly would've been killed in a volcano that erupts right before they head back to the time machine
anyway, so how do you explain that? Well, if your name is A Sound of Thunder then you don't.
You just say, "Here's the premise, now we're just going to become a monster movie and have the good guys be
chased by bat monsters in the dark." Well, I'd be interested in hearing what's said when this movie
becomes one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) flops of the year.
At about the halfway point I realized that there was no need to continue to rationalize why the movie appeared
to be so bad. I accepted the fact that in this case appearances were not deceiving and this was just a
really horrible movie. If you can accept that from the start then there is plenty of unintentional laughter to
be had.
Once our heroes started being chased by weird ape/bat/dinosaur hybrids, I just kicked back, laughed,
and shook my head at the fact that the CGI is as bad (if not worse) than what you see in Sci-Fi Original
movies starring Lorenzo Lamas and Michael Paré. I wish I were exaggerating.
I honestly don't know how this movie was allowed to achieve such mediocrity. You know when one of the
characters starts off with an American accent, then begins to fluctuate between American and British
accents, and then eventually settles into her native British accent that everybody involved
has obviously thrown in the towel and said, "Screw it, let's just get this over with."
You would think that in the year 2005 a movie with an $80 million budget wouldn't look more like a movie
that was made on an $8 million budget. I'm sorry, but CGI this awkward on this size of a budget is just
inexcusable. Way to go Hollywood. We can only hope a few jobs are lost over this disaster.
|
|
ODDS & ENDS
|
- Based on a short story by Ray Bradbury.
- Bradbury supposedly watched a screening of the movie and enjoyed it. He is accused of saying; "They
added things to my story that made it even better."
- Johnny wonders if senility is starting to set in.
- At one time Pierce Brosnan was supposed to star in the film.
- The fact that Pierce Brosnan is not in the movie shows that he has the ability to exercise good
judgment.
- Renny Harlin was supposed to direct, but he left to direct Mindhunters instead.
- This film was originally set for release in 2003. That's quite amazing considering the movie still
looks like it was rushed.
- It's ironic that Ben Kingsley looks like Bob Barker in this role. Apparently, Kingsley will star in
anything these days as long as "The Price is Right."
- Edward Burns was in Sidewalks of New York with Dennis Farina who was in The Mod Squad with
Josh Brolin who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.
|
|
MAMA'S APPROVAL
|
There is a small amount of profanity (including one or two G-d**n's), but it's not all that prevalent.
Some of the scenes and creatures might be scary for kids who are too young to notice how fake everything
looks.
|
|
TRAILER COMPARISON
|
The trailer I saw actually piqued my interest in the movie. I think that's mainly due to the fact that it
masked the CGI as much as it possibly could. If you see any trailers that intrigue you then be very wary.
|
|
THE GIST
|
A Sound of Thunder is a movie that I expected to be fairly good. I liked the premise, and I'd heard
that Ray Bradbury gave it his blessing, so I thought it had potential. I was in no way prepared for it
to be this bad. Sure, it works on a "so bad it's entertaining" level, but I know people who were really
looking forward to this. I feel sorry for 'em.
|
|
