A Sound Of Thunder Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Evolve or die.
Some Rules Should Never Be Broken.
"A Sound of Thunder" is about a game hunter (Burns) who goes on a time-traveling safari owned and operated by Kingsley's character to hunt dinosaurs in the prehistoric era. When he kills a butterfly, he unknowingly sets off a chain reaction that will erase humanity from existence. A team of experts must return back in time and replace the butterfly. McCormack is the inventor of the time-traveling computer.
| Edward Burns | Travis Ryer |
| Armin Rohde | John Wallenbeck |
| Catherine McCormack | Sonia Rand |
| Ben Kingsley | Charles Hatton |
| Jemima Rooper | Jenny Krase |
| David Oyelowo | Tech Officer Payne |
| Wilfried Hochholdinger | Dr. Lucas |
| August Zirner | Clay Derris |
| Corey Johnson | Christian Middleton |
| Alvin Van Der Kuech | Young Technician |
| William Armstrong | Ted Eckles |
| Nikita Lespinasse | Newswoman on TV |
| Stuart Ong | Chinese Man I |
| Antonin Hausknecht | Taxi Driver |
| Anezka Novak | Elderly Woman |
| Peter Hyams |
4.00 out of 10 (4676 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Pleasantly surprised
posted on 12 Aug 2009The only problem with this film was the bad imaging of motor vehicles in the background of 3 or 4 short scenes, each about 15-20 seconds long, which show people walking along a sidewalk or crossing a street; this hardly ruins the entire film. The acting was good, the plot was good and the special effects were fine. I am glad I did not see the user comments before renting the film; I saw them before watching the film, and then was relieved that it turned out to be such a good film. It keeps your interest. I do not understand the criticism of the actress for having a British accent: it is not stated that her character is an American, so we must assume that the character she is playing is British.
Be warned, it's just a B-movie
posted on 06 Aug 2009No more, no less. Bad script, bad acting, bad story, worse special effects... just forgettable. Even the trailer is flawed by the obvious lack of money spent on the film. The overall impression is that we're viewing a bunch of clichés about the time traveling and the chaos theory applied to the evolution theory, connected through a poor developed story filled with gaps and script errors, from right the beginning to the end. Of course they've tried to conceal all those errors with the inclusion of not-no-nice special effects, a trend that's common those days, but even there the lack of funds is obvious, turning them into a minus rather than in a plus.My poor Ben Kingsley... what have you done?
Sound of excitement
posted on 02 Aug 2009Sound of Thunder Warner Bros. 2005 Color 109 minutes Sci-Fi/Action Edward Burns, Catherine Mcormack and Ben Kingsley star. Written by Ray Bradbury and Thomas Dean Donnely Directed by Peter Hyams Rated PG-13 for partial nudity, violence and language Evolve or Die. The tag line reads on the poster I'm not sure I agree with it or the release of this film in theaters. But here it is nonetheless. Directed by End of Days and Relic Helmer Peter Hyams Sound of Thunder is quite an exciting movie minus the special effects. It's no doubt that the film had a Rather large budget and they completely used it in the wrong way. So before I get into the pros and obvious cons of the film let me just describe to you what it's about. Deleciously sexy Edward Burns stars as Travis Ryer a big shot scientist in 2055 that leads expedition/safaris in the prehistoric era to hunt dinosaurs. Catherine Mcormack is wonderfully smart and sarcastic as Sonia Rand the woman who invented the super computer and the technology that makes the jumps possible. she is however completely against her technology being used in such a money making way. While on a relatively routine trip an accident occurs and someone has an accident and ends up altering the past. Because of the action it begins to change time as we know it through through edition of freakish matrix inspired time waves that allows time to catch up eventually. The results are horrid as at first the climate changes, and than vegetation and plant life and finally the more complex organisms that are created because of the miss step. Interesting is'nt it. Now for the pros. The film is competently directed. The story is interesting, creative and original. The acting is decent-to good with the exception of a horridly over the top turn from once great actor Ben Kingsley. The score is exciting and the film is suspenseful, action-packed and feverishly paced. Now for the cons. The story is of course delivered in a somewhat unbelievable fashion. But yet it's still acceptable. The big problem here is the awful special effects. And they are awful. God awful. Some of the worst I've seen this side of Anacondas and Boa Vs. Python. It's obvious that the budget was a hefty sum because of the set design. But I guess they just went into overkill with their ideas because In the end the audience ends up with a rough cut of a good movie with spectacular potential. Now it's hard to pass over the effects because the movie is somewhat effects driven but me and my friend managed to separate ourselves from the paste on picturesque backgrounds and CGI monsters to endure some good storytelling, competent film making and elaborate action and suspense sequences. I must say that I throughly enjoyed this film, I really did. Edward Burns is magnificently sexy, drool worthy and they manage some nice close ups of him in his boxers shirtless. Catherine Mccormack is beautifully believable and entertaining as his female co-star and check out the subway sequence and the weird crazy monkey reptiles, exciting, scary stuff people. The important thing with watching this film is to leave your brain and your judge mental eyes at the door. It should fare better ron video and because of the final fx belongs there. But too sad for Warner Bros. They could've had a huge summer hit on their hands had they invested a bit more money. Oh well their loss. Still my gain. I don't care what anyone says Sound of Thunder=Sound of excitement. ***1/2 out of five
Why are people so bitter?
posted on 31 Jul 2009I don't understand why people hate this movie so much. I haven't seen such scathing reviews since Gigli. It sure seems like people (both the pros on rottentomatos and the amateurs here) are just trying to outdo each other in how nasty they can be. Let me hit the major objections:The time waves. Oh boy, people hated the time waves. Too complicated and it was different than the previous movies they'd seen, they said. I would point out that the time-wave theory most recently appeared in the 2005 Doctor Who series, and it made sense on its own terms. The movie took care to explain why the time waves could not be passed through, and why the alternate travel at the end eliminated them. What else could you ask for? Would people prefer the lousy, nonsensical "fade-away" theory of Back to the Future? Or the Terminator style of just ignoring the paradox altogether? I for one like to see new sci-fi ideas when I watch sci-fi movies. The griping about the central plot innovation reminds of how people hated the original Ring movie for the idea of the enchanted videotape.The SFX. Granted, they weren't at the level of Lord of the Rings, but the movie did not cost as much as Lord of the Rings. For a movie that had so little money left over for post after the Czech floods destroyed the sets during shooting, it's rather unfair to point out that there were only a handful of vehicle models and one of the street textures came from 3D Studio Max. The effects on the whole were far better than most of what we saw in the 1990s, and they were considered adequate then. To say the SFX looked like cardboard cut-outs? Give me a break. That kind of frothing at the mouth is not helpful in a review. Moreover, the SFX always advance the plot, which is something that can't be said for the Star Wars podrace or the Harry Potter Quidditch (also known as the George Lucas et al. Bathroom Break).The acting. One of the previous comments glowingly referred to Ben Kingsley's work in Sexy Beast. Now that movie had the worst camera-work since Blair Witch and the most turgid, obvious plot, and the tardiest pacing of any movie I saw that year. If that person likes movies like Sexy Beast (I believe the polite word for that kind of movie is "dialogue-driven"), then it's their own damn fault for going to see a monster sci-fi movie. I believe the acting could be fairly described as "competent" -- easily better than the Star Wars movies, for example. Nobody is going to win an Oscar, but on the other hand it doesn't star Russell Crowe.The script. I agree it could have used some editing, but at no point do the characters act like complete idiots. I would have liked to have seen an explanation of why the expeditions never ran into each other until the end, and why the main character just disappears at the end. But most, if not all, of the minor plot holes could have been resolved with better dialogue. For instance, instead of wasting time saying roughly "It will hurt, when you're pulled twice," the female scientist could have said "when this machine shuts down, this version of you will die." When they're going into the subway, the main character could have said "there are monsters up here and we would die; there may not be monsters down there" instead of whatever frivolous comment he made. In other movies (much of the Matrix 2 and 3, or the ending of AI), the plots simply made no sense on a first watching. It is better, in my opinion, to have a script that could use a little editing instead of one that completely bamboozles the moviegoer. Also, the repetitiveness of the movie (such as the ape-lizards which seemed to be everywhere) seemed to be because of SFX short-budgeting -- they had a limited creature budget. As I said above I think it's a little unfair to criticize the movie for being low-budget, when on the whole it looks pretty good.I was glad to see a B-style sci-fi movie, since its been months since the 2005 Doctor Who series finished. It had big sets, famous second-tier actors, and lots of SFX. The plot was miles better than the last four or five Star Trek movies, to say nothing of Alien v. Predator, and it's a shame that it will do so much more poorly just because it doesn't have a "franchise" attached to it.
A Sound of Thunder-Who's to Blame?
posted on 29 Jul 2009OK-It looks like I may be the only person here that actually enjoyed this film. It obviously had serious production problems but being a child of fifties sci-fi I guess I'm able to overlook more of the poor FX in this film than say the CGI generation. I found the story to be engaging, the acting adequate and the monsters scary. I did have to use some imagination though to get through some scenes in the film especially the "walking treadmill" scene but all in all an enjoyable watch. I don't know that I would have had the same feeling had I spent $10.00 to see it at the multiplex. The studio should have released it direct-to-video.There are so many aspects to a production of a film that the public is not aware of that it is hard for me to blame the director for the finished product. To me the failure of the film should fall directly upon the shoulders of the studio and the production company. The former for releasing it in it's "unfinished" form and the latter for not having enough money to properly render the special effects so critical to the success of a film of this type.
One of the wost movies ever seen.
posted on 13 Jul 2009This is one of the worst movies i've ever seen. - Vey bad SFX (worst since ages) - Very bad scenario - Bad acting and the plot.I know porn movies with a better plot, really.This movie contains all kinds of plastic stuff, plastic dinosaurs, plastic weapons (worst weapons ever made for a movie), plastic trees. In scene 3 or 4 people are walking in a digital made street, but it is far to obvious that they are cut out of a blue screen and walk some kind of low budget home-trainer to imply walking.I'm willing to take a plot as it is, but this plot is outstanding. It's totally unacceptable and really strange. Only watch this movie if you want to have a laugh about the worse elements of the movie or if you want to realize that worse movies (like Electra) are at least relatively well made.
Another example of wasted material.
posted on 29 Jun 2009This is a tough movie to review. First of all, I really like Ed Burns. I'm not sure why, but I think he has great charisma and screen presence and doesn't get the credit he deserves. And this movie has the perfect story line for a book and possibly for a movie if done right. But this movie's story was not told in a manner that was easy to understand and the special effects were absolutely HORRIBLE! I felt like I was watching a video game with real people walking through it half the time. Just unbelievably awful. If you can get past that it's not a horrible movie, but I just could not. The plot is pretty convoluted towards the end, but if you pay enough attention you can make sense of it. It's worth a rental, but only if you can't really find anything else. I say, however, give Ed Burns the right role in a bigger movie and he could be just as big as, say Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, etc. The man can act.
so much talent gathered for a bad B-movie
posted on 27 Jun 2009More than a quarter of century ago Peter Hyams was directing Harrison Ford in 'Hanover Street'. It is hard to believe that this 2006 science-fiction flop comes from the same director. Ben Kigsley is a wonderful actor, Oscar winner, one of those actors than seem that they cannot do wrong. What made him do this film at all, and then act so badly in this bad movie is hard to imagine.One has to wonder why such talented people spent their money and risked their name participating in such an enterprise. Ray Bradbury's idea in this story is already famous, and many other movies and books have been made and written based on time loops, on going back and influencing your own and humanity's future by actions in the past ('Back to the Future' is one famous example). However this film is devoid of any ambition to be more than a routine B-movie, the plot is full of holes, the special effects are naive, and the acting is so conventional that it makes one being nostalgic after the good old Star Trek series.Waste of time.
awful
posted on 23 Jun 2009For anybody who is thinking of watching this movie please please please please don't waste your time.this movie was a poor excuse of any time travel event, and you had to think what the hell the director wasthinking when he made this film. the only good movie this director actually put effort into was "end of days". My suggestion is that PeterHyams needs to go back to his roots and find out what the hell happenedbecause it seems like he has endangered his own existence with thismovie. GO BACK IN TIME AND CHANGE ITWIth Love Ryan i would haveput a 0 for voting but that option is not allowed.
What?
posted on 21 Jun 2009My friend recommended this movie to me.Is should have known not to watch it because my friend is kind of a video game nerd. But the name and the cover made it look good for some reason. I was so wrong. I mean first of all, what is up with their suits? And the acting! It seems like they got the people off Barney. Except for Ben Kingsley. And why was he even in this movie? Did he think it was a comedy! But I have to say the special effects were pretty good. But that was like the only good thing in it. I mean seriously, the movie is worse than Pearl Harbor. And thats actually an understatement. Everyone must have thought "oh I am getting paid so it doesn't matter if its the worst movie in the world." I would understand why someone would make this kind of movie if they were directing, acting, producing, writing, and getting their hopeless life best friend to do filming and editing. Probably one of the worst sci-fi movies ever. One truly jacked up film
Terrible time travel tosh!
posted on 19 Jun 2009Usually, when a sci-fi/horror film is incredibly bad, I am able to derive some kind of enjoyment from its sheer awfulness. A Sound of Thunder manages to be such a festering heap of mouldering cinematic tripe, that even the sight of a pack of lizard baboons chasing the good guys didn't make me smirk.This absolute stink-fest is directed by Peter Hyams who is occasionally capable of producing a watchable movie; however, A Sound of Thunder, based on a Ray Bradbury short story, is quite possibly the worst film on his CV. The preposterous plot follows a team of time travelling hunters (led by the bland Edward Burns) who inadvertently cause a ripple in time which alters the course of evolution. The script is lacklustre (apart from the occasional humorous line from Ben Kingsley's character), the direction awfully dull, and the special effects pathetic.Apparently, the original production company went bankrupt during post-production and many scenes were left unfinished—and, boy, does it show! The movie boasts some of the most laughable CGI I have had the misfortune to witness (check out the scenes in which characters unconvincingly 'walk' through the awful cityscapes).Don't be tempted by the interesting sounding premise—this one is a stinker from start to finish.
Too slow and fizzles out.
posted on 15 Jun 2009A great plot is ruined by a non-believable cast. The main actors are just not what you would expect as hero/saving the world types. Much of the movie (after the original time travel) is shown in the dark which ruins the enjoyment a lot. Could have done a bit better with the storyline. Gets a bit complicated as time travel movies usually do. And once again when movies feature underwater scenes actors are always able to hold their breath for ridiculous amounts of time. The special effects scenes were not what we are used to from a twenty first century movie. Now I realise why I had not heard of this movie until I saw it on my television screen.
Worst Thing I've Ever Seen!
posted on 01 Jun 2009Let's start with the story... I have read the original Ray Bradbury's short story, and i thought this should have been a good sci-fi movie to follow up the success of I, Robot or Minority Report, but i was so disappointed in how the Bradbury's story was crippled. OK, for those who just want to sit in the theater and watch good cgi - NOT A F**** chance!!! I mean the cgi is so bad, and the dinosaur crossover monkey thing? NOT a must see!!! Now, let's talk about the actors. Now, when i think of Ben Kingsley, i imagine him in a must see movie, but at least he is the only entertaining person in the movie. And Edward Burns - well, he does nothing special in the movie - he's just your average doctor/good shooter type of character. Overall, this is the worst movies i have ever seen. And Peter Hyams should end his movie making career.
Plot line from a German short film
posted on 30 May 2009This picture is a bad and blown up rip off of the Michael Pohl short film EXTINCT from 1995. While Michael Pohl's idea was original and perfect for a short film setting, A SOUND OF THUNDER's plot was poorly adapted from Pohl's story and not fit for a full length feature film one would expect from a major Hollywod studio. The tragic flooding situation that ruined the sets in Prague was just one bad link in a long rusty film production chain in this case. For a studio to release such a product... it is a shame. Especially for Warner Brothers, a studio which broke new effects grounds with shows like BABYLON 5 in 1993. On TELEVISION. Visual effects for television shows pioneering CGI in episodic television in the mid nineties were way more sophisticated than what is brought to the screen in this picture. In cases like this, sad as it may be: Can the film.
A poor adaptation of the greatest time travel story
posted on 28 May 2009A SOUND OF THUNDER is an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's classic short story, about a group of time travelers who set off a terrible shift of events because of one tiny error they made on a safari to the distant past. We all know what that is, so I shan't bring it up here. Because Bradbury's masterpiece is only a few pages, it was up to a handful of scripters to come up with enough plot for a 90-minute movie. Their solution: To have the time travel "mistake" set off a series of destructive time waves that keep altering the planet for the worse. It is up to the time travelers to go back in time and fix the mistake. Sounds good. Right? You would be wrong if you think so. The script is preposterous, the special effects and visuals are incredibly poor and the acting and dialog is for the birds. Why, what a surprise: hack director Peter Hyams was in charge! You will see scenes that are right out of his so-so adaptation of THE RELIC and you will hear dialog and witness situations that may remind you of Frank Marshall's incredibly bad adaptation of Michael Crichton's CONGO. For the best laugh, watch the two principals "walking" down a city sidewalk. They are green-screened against a miniature set and pretend to walk forward toward the camera. All they are actually doing is shuffling their weight from side to side. I hate to think what this movie may have cost, miniature sets notwithstanding. Ed Burns as the lead time traveler plays a role almost identical to that of Vince Vaughn in JURASSIC PARK 3. Ben Kingsley is a howl as his rug-wearing, line-chewing boss, obviously intended to evoke memories of the bombastic boss in JURASSIC PARK. Most everyone else is wasted. It becomes painfully apparent early on this was shot overseas with a largely foreign crew and foreign financing. It is not an American movie as such and suffers greatly for it.
No budget for FX or Advertising...
posted on 22 May 2009I have lived in the Los Angeles area for about a year now. When I can, I enjoy seeing free screenings of movies. As I understand it, these test screenings are done by marketing-research companies at the behest of the movie studios. You watch a movie for free and then you fill out a form explaining what you liked and didn't like about the movie. The company then selects a smaller group of viewers for a Q & A focus group.So I saw a free screening of A SOUND OF THUNDER about six months ago. We were told that the special effects were just "mock-ups" and therefore to not judge those effects too harshly. And we were promised that for the actual release the special effects would look spectacular.I just watched A SOUND OF THUNDER on its opening Friday and the special effects were EXACTLY the same. They used the mock-ups, the "pretend special effects," for the release.Which leaves me to believe that the test screenings got such bad feedback that the studio decided to cut its losses. They didn't advertise this film very much and they didn't spend any REAL money on the special effects.One thing they may have changed was some of the editing. The pace felt a little better than the original free screening. I mean the movie has a lot of problems but it seemed like some small things were cut or at least cut differently.I'm hoping that the DVD will have a commentary track so we can hear the behind-the-scenes story of what really happened. But I doubt the studio will put any bells and whistles on the DVD release.I agree with everyone else. This is a bad movie (with the exception of Ben Kingsley's interesting character work). But it was made worse by the studio's lack of commitment and backing.
A time travel film so bad, it makes Time Cop look cerebral
posted on 22 May 2009One has to say that, by and by, on the whole and at the end of the day, if time travel were possible... it's not something you should take lightly and certainly not something you should use as a leisure activity.Don't worry though, that won't stop it becoming a form of entertainment for the super rich though. The premise - from a 1952 classic sci-fi short story - isn't actually that bad. Far-fetched but interesting.Here, it just comes off as ludicrous. It seems everyone realises that something will probably go wrong... but obviously, the potential disaster of history being utterly changed doesn't get in the way of good ol' American corporate greed.So inevitably, something goes wrong and time starts to change. For no particular reason, this doesn't happen all at once but in waves... and for some equally nonsensical reason, humans get affected last.Understandably, as the world goes to hell - it's a race against time. Who could care though, it's just a myriad of lame effects and the inevitable ending.Don't bother.
If time travel were possible, I'd go back to just before I entered the theater!
posted on 20 May 2009This movie was supremely awful! Regardless of the film's budget, the storyline was disjointed and nonsensical in its presentation. I felt like I was watching a patchwork of what remained on the cutting room floor!! I can't believe Ben Kingsley and Catherine McCormack (a stage actress of much laud and acclaim) would have anything to do with this. Whereas the root of the story is an interesting concept, the tree which sprung forth is most twisted and incomprehensible.Every so called theoretical result of their violation of causality was perfectly understood by the constantly ranting scientist, Sonia Rand, who knew exactly what to expect and exactly how to resolve these events that presumably nobody had ever dealt with before. As they were navigating through this world which was being altered from simple plant life on up with each pass of a "time wave", racing against the inevitable change of themselves (because humans were apparently the "last species to evolve" in our time), they were constantly being harried by beasts reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen films. There was also this pathetic scene where Edward Burns, easily talked into leaving an injured man behind, watches on as the man (regressing to what seemed to be a conversation he had with someone when he was a little boy) quickly proceeds to get devoured by mutant reptilian baboons. However, all the while Dr Rand faced every challenge with the savvy of a seasoned pro, understanding the physics of it all with a clarity that the audience unfortunately were left to envy. (One quick question: how are there dinosaur-like sea creatures and reptilian baboons, which sleep suspended like bats, in this causality-altered world? Did their violation of the past extend even so far as to obliterate the asteroid in space that ended the Age of the Reptiles 65 million years ago???) The film resolves and ends with all the grace of a walk off a plank! Oh yeah, and Edward Burns seems to have an incredible knowledge of (completely alien) animal behavior, structural engineering, and fluid dynamics which I can tell you, got them out of more than a few jams.I would only suggest you see this film if you are fanatically faithful to Ben Kingsley or Catherine McCormack, or if you are a MSTie who needs the satisfying fix of a perfect film atrocity! This movie should be dissected and studied by film students for years to try to gain a formulaic insight as to what ingredients add up to the worst possible movie.
I like this movie!
posted on 12 May 2009I thought this movie was great. It started out a little slow, but it was building the story, explaining... This movie represented possibilities to things you hope could never happen, but what if? Interesting concept, cool special effects, good storyline. Everything was not presented in black and white, so it took some figuring out and stretching of your mind to understand what was going on. Once chaos began, it kept you on the edge of your seat wondering what could possibly happen next, all because of something so small, overlooked, insignificant.... All in all, I would definitely recommend this movie to others!
Worst Film of the Decade
posted on 18 Aug 2009After hearing about how awful A Sound of Thunder was, I decided to see it in the theater just to have a good time and laugh at something horrible. I got what I was looking for.-- Warning: Mild Spoilers Ahead -- One of the most laughable aspects of the movie was the excessive and quite possibly the worst green-screen use I've ever seen. Even for a movie that was supposed to be released in 2003, the special effects are ludicrous. Every scene that takes place outdoors in 2055 is green-screened in such a bad way that there's absolutely no way to cover it up. The cars look like they were designed by a 2 year old with a Lego set. The Allosaurus looks like it was pulled straight from a PlayStation 1 cut-scene movie, and the way it acts when things get screwy is hilarious. There is also no explanation of the solid water-like walkway, how in the hell the government would have ever passed a time travel device that could be so dangerous, how Dr. Lucas manages to avoid the plant that grabs his gun, how the buildings were destroyed, etc. Pop-corn flick all the way.The only reason I have given this film a 2 instead of a 1 is because of the apelizards, and IMDb has a picture of one on the Photos page. Other than that, the creators of the movie give you one beastie for each area of earth: air, land, water, and plants. People die, of course, in a way that is pure Hollywood, and you'll understand what I mean if you see this piece of trash.Overall, the movie was made to entertain, not to make you think. Yes, there is some easily forgettable dialog involving apparently deep scientific theories, but they only scratch the surface of interest, and they are quickly wrapped up and brushed away for "action" to keep the audience from thinking too much about the fact that time travel as we now know it is basically impossible. Throw in cheesy dialog, awful editing, gigantic plot holes, the worst CGI and green-screening in years, a hunk and some large-breasted women, futuristic Super Soakers, and you get the worst film of the decade.