A Sound of Thunder

Wasn’t this originally supposed to be Timecop 4 with Lorenzo Lamas? In any case, it’s necessary to see this at the cinema, because you won’t see anything like it on the big screen again anytime soon. But I stand by my one-star rating – A Sound of Thunder is a fine guilty pleasure. (10/20/2005)

If I were Ray Bradbury and saw this thing, I would a) be mortally offended; b) get drunk; c) laugh myself to death. In Bradbury's case I would guess option c), but at any rate, from his brilliant and famous short story "The Thunderstorm" they have extracted the basic skeleton of the key concept, the idea of time paradoxes, and developed it cinematically to a truly unsuspected extent. It looks like the speech of a politician who wants to convey one idea in Parliament, but because he likes to listen to himself, he develops it into a half-hour monologue, and a very boring and poor monologue at that. Here you really don't know what to laugh at first: the awkward visual effects, the even more awkward dialogue, or Kingsley's snow-white wig. In a nutshell: this crap is worthless. If you want time paradoxes, better watch Polák's Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea, or time paradoxes and a clever reminiscence of Bradbury's story, watch The Simpsons Halloween special from season 5, where Homer travels through time using a broken toaster. What I recommend the most, however, is Bradbury’s short story itself. (05/20/2008)

Bradbury’s "A Sound of Thunder" is certainly a brilliant story, although I don't think it's the best the master ever wrote (and I haven't read the whole of "Kaleidoscope" yet). Regardless, A Sound of Thunder embodies absolutely every Hollywood evil that comes from translating literary classics to the screen. The situation is set up perfectly (it has to be given the premise), and the special effects are endearingly demented for A-list cinema entertainment, but it all goes down the drain with the return of the second expedition when evolutionary waves start ravaging the city, and someone gets the idea that overgrown flowers and lizard-tailed monkeys are "awfully cool." It's not a stupid B-movie, but it is an abominable piece of shit that doesn't bore but offends. It's hard to say which is worse. (04/14/2010)

Do you want a guide on how to kill a thirty-meter long water monitor lizard? Wait for it to pounce at you and hit it in the eye with a pocket knife. Good luck. The fact that these Hunters were able to make it to cinemas without any problems in 2005 remains an incomprehensible tragedy to this day. (05/14/2006)

A badly filmed "interesting" idea with horrendous special effects. If nothing else, A Sound of Thunder will make you laugh. But poor old Ray Bradbury - the filmmakers managed to destroy his short story of the same name. Peter Hyams is a putz. (04/25/2008)

A sci-fi film where the only interesting thing is the main premise and everything else, including the actors and visuals, is so bad that I can’t believe the courage of the creators and especially the producers to release something like this to the public after a test screening, especially to cinemas. A small plus for the fact that I managed to finish watching this boring mess of several inferior genres and even more inferior screenwriting – it really wasn't easy. (08/12/2015)

A bad movie is a bad movie and everyone can recognize it at first glance when they watch it. "Dinosaur Hunters" is exactly such a film and I still cannot understand how this movie made it to our cinemas. It has several elements that make it a complete stupidity. What could still be acceptable are the bad visual effects. Even better movies have bad tricks. What the viewer cannot tolerate is a bad story and terrible acting performances. I stand by the belief that when creating a work about time travel, certain rules must be followed. This film completely ignores that and creates some nonsensical world and time waves, which are visually effective but otherwise meaningless. The problem is deviating from the path when people travel to the past, but it's apparently okay to shoot a dinosaur there. Playing with time paradoxes is completely killed off in favor of a script-driven ending that is as interesting as a typical action movie. Edward Burns is definitely not a big star, but here he just shows that he can't even choose a film according to the script. All the other actors are pretty bad or have no space, and it's a shame to see the participation of an otherwise excellent and demonic Kingsley. "Dinosaur Hunters" have nothing positive about them, nothing to praise them for. The creatures that the screenwriters came up with just don't look good, and the bad CGI adds to that. Avoid this movie, for God's sake, an hour and a half can be much more constructively spent reading in the bathroom. Just be careful not to get wooden legs. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2012/10/zitra-nehrajeme-lovci-dinosauru.html (03/01/2013)