- Format: PAL, Widescreen, Dolby, Digital Sound, Colour
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.78:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: 12
- Studio: Whv
- DVD Release Date: 4 Sep 2006
- Run Time: 97 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B000H30MTY
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 63,154 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Suspense thriller based on the famous short story by master of fiction Ray Bradbury. In the year 2055, a technology has been invented that enables people to go back in time to hunt dinosaurs. When one such expedition to the Prehistoric past unwittingly makes a fatal mistake it dramatically impacts the course of evolution, setting off waves of destruction that ripple toward the modern world and unleashing an army of fearsome creatures that never should have existed. Two scientists race against time to fix the catastrophic error while their world collapses around them and every minute brings the human race closer to extinction.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable throwback to 50s B-movies best viewed with no expectations,
By
This review is from: A Sound of Thunder [DVD] (DVD)
Ray Bradbury's classic short story A Sound of Thunder popularised the Butterfly Effect theory as time-travelling dinosaur hunters inadvertently change the future by unwittingly bringing something back from the past only to find it impossible to go back and change things before they become extinct - the kind of pitch that sounds like it was made in high concept movie heaven. So how can an idea that good turn into a fiasco that sits on the shelf for three years before escaping to a handful of theaters? Well, the fact that the poster alone boasts 13 producers credits and nine production companies and the trailer credits two writers who aren't billed among the three on the finished film, it's pretty obvious that too many chefs have been working on this primordial strew. Then there are the endless production problems - the sets being flooded in Czechoslovakia, the company going bankrupt after a series of financial scandals and lawsuits, the lack of money to complete the special effects which are a few passes away from being finished but still acceptable if you're in a forgiving B-movie mood (the biggest problem is the poor integration with backgrounds), the departure of Renny Harlin and Pierce Brosnan in favor of the even less inspiring Peter Hyams and Edward Burns... this one never stood a chance.
But the weirdest thing? It's a really enjoyable movie. Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly a fun one. It's best to think of it as a modern 50s sci-fi B-movie, the kind of thing that Ray Harryhausen might have worked on in his black and white days had Sam Katzman ever bothered with a halfway decent script. Had this come along around the time of Jurassic Park, it probably would have been embraced, but since then a mixture of dino and cgi overkill has moved it to the bottom of the food chain. Yes, the effects are variable to put it mildly and the ending a little underpowered (and the attempt at humor there spectacularly flat) and it could have benefited from a more charismatic star than the adequate but uninspiring Edward Burns to carry it. Still, Ben Kingsley - sorry, Sir Ben Kingsley, as the cast list reads - is enjoyably hammy before his character disappears, there's a nice little Capricorn One joke in there as well and it's all certainly much more fun than Hyams' previous creature feature The Relic. And it has man-eating Baboonosaurs! How can you not love a film with man-eating Baboonosaurs? Warners' DVD is fittingly bare bones - an acceptable 2.35:1 transfer with only two theatrical trailers as extras.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
To remake remakes is not very creative,
By
This review is from: A Sound of Thunder [DVD] (DVD)
Simple indeed. A dramatic rewriting of "Back to the Future". But this time it is back to the past. If you play with time and manage to take people for ten minutes to the time of dinosaurs, in order to make money of course, you are playing with more than fire, with genetic dynamite. The slightest change in the past environment, or the slightest souvenir, willful or not, brought back from the past to the present will change the whole genetic perspective and the present will be transformed because the past will have been. One simple insect missing in the past may have drastic consequence son the evolution of life on the planet.
Maybe one insect is a little bit too little, and yet that absent insect will mean that some other being on the chain will not find its food and some flowers will not get pollinated, and a whole drastic transformation may be introduced in the run of millions of years. Keep in mind each creature, each vegetal organism in this life is the prey of some predator, the food of some living organism. That basic Darwinian rules can cause miracles and catastrophes if it is tampered with. The film is just that kind of idea implemented in 2055. It is creative as for some of the beasts, though it is rather simple as for the general idea. Man becoming the prey of some new species was already worked on by H.G. Wells in his "Time Machine", and setting the future right by correcting the change in the past your inattention caused was the main argument of "Back to the Futur"e. So you should enjoy the simple plot and the beautiful adventure. The monsters are yet far from the creatures of "Avatar" or "Aliens" and the change seems to have blocked the evolution line so that no intelligent species of the human type was produced by the mistake. I doubt that one very much. If evolution there is and animal life there is Darwin's evolution of species can be stated as a general rule and an intelligent species should appear. That's why we can say that in the whole cosmos there must be several planets with intelligent life. They will not necessarily look like man physically but intellectually there is a fair chance the same articulated and logical intelligence will be produced, eventually and unavoidably. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Low expectations are such a great thing!,
By
This review is from: A Sound of Thunder [DVD] (DVD)
After reading all those reviews below, I finally decided to see this movie, out of sheer curiosity. And I must admit that this is a bad movie -if you have any alternatives (like a dentist visit) do not waste your time on it. However, if you are totally desperate, here is the list of points that may make you consider watching it: 1. The vision of future Chicago. Now, I happen to know well "The Windy City" and I like this place very much. And the way future Chicago is shown, is just great - all principal features of the downtown were integrated in a future Metropolis-like city and it is great fun to watch. Also, I almost died with laughter, when I saw what men will wear in Chicago, around year 2080! 2. Although most of the special effects are cheap and low quality, the "time waves" are quite impressive and the gradual changes in the aspect of life on Earth at every next "wave" were not so silly at all. The grizzly-sized and wolverine-tempered reptilian "baboons" are actually quite well made - and it could be a nice idea to make another movie in which they actually evolved further, to full intelligence. They could make great villains... 3. The moment when dr Sonia Rand was transformed by the last "time wave", was hilarious... I actually found that this unsufferable chick looked better as a reptile with whiskers... 4. And finally, this is the only movie in which you can see Ben Kingsley with hair... and you will never believe the COLOUR!! Have a vacuum cleaner handy, because you will probably throw popcorn on your TV out of sheer joy at his first appearance! All in all, if you approach this movie with low expectations and treat it a little as a curious joke, well, you can spend a surprisingly relaxing evening...
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