Low Budget

A Sound of Thunder: Commentary and Review

Movie: A Sound of Thunder
Basis: Short story by the same name, written by Ray Bradbury
Director: Peter Hyams
Cast: Edward Burns, Ben Kingsley, Catherine McCormack

Movie-making technology is moving very rapidly. It seems like just yesterday that Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow proved that you could create a whole amazing world in the background while uncomfortable actors posed woodenly in front of it. Now we can not only place wooden actors in front of an animated background that is almost, but not quite as good as a mid-level video game, we have also mastered compression technology. In fact, this movie takes the scripts of at least ten bad sci-fi movies and smashes them all into one.
Sadly, they claim that the resulting piece of dreck is based on a classic science fiction story by one of the original masters of the genre, Ray Bradbury. I read that story, many years ago, and this is NOT that story. Actually, the story itself isn't any great shakes, more of a thought piece than a dramatic event. Still, it is protected by the "classic" label and we won't assail it here.
The idea is that, if time travel were possible, a very small change in the past could create massive changes in the present. That idea may have seemed intriguing when the story was first written, but we've all seen Back to the Future and we get the point. This movie takes that premise and makes a mish-mash of it. The changes supposedly produced by the smashing of a butterfly are ridiculous, altering the laws of physics, biology, evolution, and narrative structure. The only thing that is preserved is the order in which characters get killed off. (Cannon fodder, Weak bad guy, Good black guy, Real bad guy, attractive but flawed girl, with Perky Girl and Hero sticking to the end).
I love bad movies almost as much I like really great ones. But seriously, I'm amazed this one was released. The events follow along randomly, filling the space between the two basic plot points of the original story and the Hollywood-dictated redemption and ending.

posted by dan @ 9/01/2005 01:29:00 PM