Dudes A Sound of Thunder Movie Review

Now for the polar opposite of pure fun, but something that my 14 year old brain would probably have appreciated far more than my current one does. Yes, I speak of A Sound of Thunder. It has everything going for it on paper: Time travel, dinosaurs, paradoxes, Ray Bradbury origins, baboon lizards. And Ed Burns, who looks like he's bored in almost any movie he's in aside from his own, but for whom I'll constantly give credit to for admitting in his Sidewalks of New York commentary track that his character wears a Yankees cap solely because he needed a hat that day, and couldn't find his Mets one. He's a Mets fan, and that garners my respect. See? Sound of Thunder was so boring, that I could go on about the Mets and not even care. In fact, a Mets game would have been better. At least I could be able to see what the hell is going on.

A Sound of Thunder takes place in the future, where time travel is a reality! People can go back in time and hunt a dinosaur. It's actually the same dinosaur over and over again, because it's one they know will die in a few minutes under a volcano. the rationale behind this is that since they technically aren't disrupting the course of events of life and death, that the "butterfly effect" won't take place. (If you don't know what the butterfly theory is, look it up. It's probably under chaos theory on ye olde internet.) I could be a pain in the ass and point out if they kill the same dinosaur over and over again, how come they don't run into each other, but this movie doesn't seem to want to answer that, so I'm not even gonna bother.

So as you can probably figure out, because there wouldn't be a movie otherwise let's face it, something goes wrong on one of the hunting trips. This could have been foreseen by the stating of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, and usually when somebody makes a grand proclamation of a scientific theory, it's only a matter of time before it begins to manifest. "Time Waves" come crashing upon a futuristic Chicago and change the course of things, bringing the world up on the evolution it's missed. Man, I'm boring myself. Anyway, trees begin to overgrow the city, followed by baboon lizards. I'm serious when I write that. Allow it to soak in. BABOON LIZARDS. They have one vulnerable point: Their neck. Does it even matter?

The movie is pretty bad. Pretty much everything you've already heard about it is true. I wanted to like it. The kid in me wanted to really like it. But I just couldn't. Not with the heavy on fiction, light on science script. Not with these special effects. Not with everyone looking pretty bored with the material. And not with Peter Hyams directing, especially after he'd already directed a better time traveling movie with Jean Claude Van Damme. I'll repeat that again: A BETTER MOVIE WITH JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME! I speak of Timecop. this one, however, seems that it had a bigger budget than Timecop, and yet looks even crappier. There's one blue screen shot with Ed Burns and a girl walking and talking, and it's pretty obvious the actors are on a treadmill walking in place. The baboon lizards looked pretty good, I must say, but then they were baboon lizards.

BABOON LIZARDS!

Seriously, that should be your jumping off point. But for as much as I want to give this movie a break, I have to keep knocking it down. See, Peter Hyams LOVES Rembrandt. (he was a Painter, known for stark uses of light in portraits and scenes, very naturalistic). Hyams has professed his love in many an audio commentary (most notably End of Days, which allowed me to respect the film, and Hyams in a whole new way until now). But the problem with that is Hyams loves natural lighting, but it makes everything difficult as hell to see. Look at all the night scenes, if you dare to see this film (which you really shouldn't). There's always a scene or two lit purely by flashlight (See The Relic, another better movie), which I can respect, but it drives me crazy not being able to see anything. I like you Hyams, but it's starting to wear thin. I know you like to shoot your own movies, but still, there's no shame in admitting that sometimes a giant light overhead at night works. I as an audience member will accept it and go along, provided it lets me SEE things.

There was ONE truly great moment in A Sound of Thunder. No, it didn't involve Baboon Lizards. All I'm gonna say is think Deep Blue Sea. If you've seen Deep Blue Sea, you know the scene I'm talking about, because it's the only thing in THAT movie that everybody remembers. There's a scene very similar in this, where I laughed my balls off. I don't think I was supposed to, but I did. It was very entertaining, and at that point, I just decided to see how long I could keep laughing. It lasted almost to the end. (When the last time wave crashes, the fate of the female doctor was really goofy).

Yeah, it was pretty damn bad.

Anyway, that was my fun double feature. I totally should have watched Transporter afterwards, and I probably would have enjoyed it even more. That's not to say I didn't have fun with Sound of Thunder. i just had the wrong kind of fun with Sound of Thunder. Which sounds kind of rude. The wrong kind of fun with Baboon Lizards. That sounds like a kick ass band name, or album title. If it gets used, I want credit. Or to be on the cover of the record.