Time travel could become the ultimate adventure trip, offering people a chance to correct past mistakes as well as providing glimpses of the future. Traveling through the Fourth Dimension doesn’t come without some serious risks, though, which becomes painfully clear in A Sound of Thunder, an overlooked 2005 thriller.
Based on the short story by Ray Bradbury, this film is set in 2055, when time travel has become a profitable reality. One company uses this technology to conduct exclusive safaris into the past. Dr. Travis Ryer (Edward Burns) and his crew take groups of wealthy hunters into the past to stalk and kill a dinosaur. To avoid changing the past, the hunters must stay on a special path and not bring anything back with them. They also must be careful not to kill anything but that particular dinosaur, which was going to die even before the hunters got there.
After conducting many such safaris, something goes terribly wrong. Ripples through time cause drastic changes in the Earth’s climate, plant, and animal life. Somehow, a member of the last safari did something to affect the course of history and evolution. Plant life grows out of control, threatening to engulf buildings and people, and animals mutate into strange new forms.
Even the most skilled hunters would find the violent creatures in A Sound of Thunder rather challenging. Reptile and primate evolution has gone haywire and only Dr. Ryer, with the help of physicist Dr. Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), can set things right again. Ryer literally has to race the clock to find out what the hunters changed on the last safari and correct it before it is too late.
During normal safaris, experienced hunters take precautions, and this is especially true during a time safari. Everyone wears protective gear and uses guns loaded with frozen nitrogen bullets. In this way, the normal flow of time is preserved and unaltered.
In addition to an interesting science fiction plot, A Sound of Thunder takes place both in a prehistoric jungle and Chicago of the mid-21st century, which is overgrown with tropical plant life. Though ignored during its initial theatrical run, this film definitely offers one wild ride.
