Quartile rating: 5/10 · 1 rating
When a hunter sent back to the prehistoric era runs off the path he must not leave, he causes a chain reaction that alters history in disastrous ways.
A Sound of Thunder is a disappointing adaptation of Ray Bradbury's classic short story about the butterfly effect and time travel. The plot simplifies and bloats the elegant source material into a generic action-adventure, losing much of its philosophical weight. The acting is serviceable at best, with even capable performers like Ben Kingsley hamming it up in underwritten roles. The cinematography and visual effects are notoriously poor — the CGI looks unfinished and cheap even by 2005 standards, with obvious green screen compositing throughout that undermines any sense of tension or immersion. While the source concept is genuinely iconic, the film's execution is derivative of other creature-feature and time-travel action films, adding little distinctive voice or craft. The ending resolves the chaos in a perfunctory and unsatisfying manner. Overall this is a well-below-average execution of a premise with real potential.