Tagline: Some rules should never be broken.
Based on a short story by master of science fiction Ray Bradbury, the sci-fi action adventure A Sound of Thunder is set in the future, when time travel is not only possible… it’s a lucrative monopoly. It’s especially profitable for Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley), the owner of Time Safari Inc., a travel agency that specializes in escorting wealthy clients on exclusive hunting trips back to the Prehistoric Age.
When an expedition is compromised and alters the landscape of the future, a seasoned scout (Edward Burns) teams up with the inventor of the time travel technology (Catherine McCormack) to unravel the mystery behind the catastrophic historical changes that are threatening to erase humanity from existence.
In the near future, time travel will be an exciting, if unpredictable, reality. For a price, rich adventurers can stir their dormant killer instincts by booking safaris back to the Prehistoric age to hunt real, live dinosaurs. There are only three essential rules: Don’t change anything in the past; don’t leave anything behind; and most important, don’t bring anything back. The slightest alteration might impact the existing course of evolution in ways that no one can imagine.
Based on a short story by award-winning author Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder opens on the year 2055 in downtown Chicago where a very elite travel agency, Time Safari Inc., has cornered the lucrative time-traveling market with an exclusive prehistoric hunting package. Time Safari Inc. is the hottest ticket in town… until the unthinkable happens.
Someone breaks the rules. And evolution runs off its tracks
The changes come in waves. They start small, affecting the atmosphere and lower life forms first, then move rapidly up the food chain with each subsequent pass. Within 24 hours dramatic transformations appear throughout the city, spurring residents from curiosity to growing alarm and finally panic.
Thousands of fish beach themselves on the Lake Michigan shore. Plant life grows to monstrous proportions as if reclaiming some ancient tropical territory, bursting through the pavement with great sinuous roots, overturning cars in the street and engulfing entire buildings from inside and out. Then come the insects, fast-moving voracious organisms resembling giant roaches and locusts, streaming over everything in deadly hordes.
Species of predatory creatures suddenly emerge, in reptilian form, with rapier reflexes and surprisingly intelligent features, darkening the sky and running rampant through an increasingly hostile and terrifying landscape.
Only two people guess what might be happening: Dr. Travis Ryer (Edward Burns), who leads the Time Safari expeditions into the past, and Dr. Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), the gifted physicist who developed the technology that makes these journeys possible. Time Safari CEO Charles Hatton (Sir Ben Kingsley) stole the largely untested technology from Rand and has been using it despite her warnings. Now, it appears her worst fears are realized.
It used to be our world. Now it’s theirs. Threatened on all sides and fast running out of time, Ryer and Rand must find a way to go back and correct whatever catastrophic error was made, to save themselves and the human race from certain extinction. But as each new wave of change rolls forward from the Prehistoric past, their world continues to collapse all around them.
A Sound of Thunder (2005)
Directed by: Peter Hyams
Starring: Edward Burns, Ben Kingsley, Catherine McCormack, Corey Johnson, Jemima Rooper, Heike Makatsch, August Zirner, Nikita Lespinasse, Scott Bellefeville
Screenplay by: Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer
Production Design by: Richard Holland
Cinematography by: Peter Hyams
Film Editing by: Sylvie Landra
Costume Design by: Sakina Msa, Esther Walz
Set Decoration by: Richard Roberts
Art Direction by: Keith Pain
Music by: Nick Glennie-Smith
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi violence, nudity, and language.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: September 2, 2005
Visits: 181
