The most dangerous technology in the world, time travel, is co-opted by a billionaire to provide safaris back to the time of dinosaurs. The cost is phenomenal, the thrill is unique, the rules are complex and strict - don't bring anything back, don't leave anything behind, don't step off the path and don't change anything. Inevitably, something goes wrong and the past rushes in on the present with plants and animals that have evolved very differently for 65 million years. Man is no longer at the top of the food chain.

THE SOUND OF THUNDER is one of Ray Bradbury's most famous short stories. Replace genetics and cloning for time travel and it forms a blueprint for JURASSIC PARK in that it tells tale of a science than its creators believe they can control used for the entertainment of the jaded before something goes wrong and the Pirates of the Caribbean really do eat the tourists. It was already adapted as an episode of RAY BRADBURY THEATER. The problem for the film-makers is that the story feels stretched even at TV episode length and it only goes so far as to show the results of what happens when it goes wrong. It doesn't offer a solution, so the writers have to come up with one of their own and the writers are no Ray Bradbury.

Time travel on screen has always been a tricky thing to portray, requiring a set of rules to be created and then usually abandoned when the story demands it. A SOUND OF THUNDER barely pays lip service to the idea of explaining how the time travel in its story works and is hopelessly inconsistent as the story progresses. The basic rules of what not to do are plain enough, but how is it that subsequent parties can visit the exact point in time and take part in the exact same hunt without meeting each other? And if the groups never return to the same point in time as the others, how can the hero do just that in order to solve everything so neatly? And that's before we even get onto the concept of time rearranging itself in waves that affects certain lifeforms at certain rates? Initially, only plants and bugs are superevolved, but then we get baboongators and pterabatdacyls on later waves. The final wave will alter humanity itself. Except that 65 million years of alternative evolution haven't affected the memories of the individuals in the narrative and hasn't altered the city, apart from making it more like a jungle. The laboratory they use for time travel remains in place and mostly working despite history being upended for 65 million years. Surely some of the people would have decided to do something else with their lives when faced with increasingly hostile creatures throughout history? And the spot where the hunt goes wrong is shown to be completely wiped out by an exploding volcano, so how exactly did a single butterfly get to minimum safe distance in a couple of minutes in order to wreak such havoc on the time line? None of it makes any sense whatsoever, but the hope is that the thrill ride will be exciting enough to stop the audience from thinking about that.

Except that it's not. The initial setup is fine, introducing the characters, but then we move into an investigatory phase where the team try to figure out what went wrong, and go about it in strange and illogical ways. The length of time it takes them to think about looking at the tape of the safari to see if it shows what happened is ridiculous. Then we move into the action phase where a small group of adventurers have to fight their way through a landscape filled with strange and predatory plants and animals.

Ah yes, the animals. Let's start with the allosaurus that everyone goes back in time to kill. There is absolutely no excuse for the dinosaur to be so plasticky and cheap-looking. This is more than a decade after JURASSIC PARK set the standard for dinosaurs at the movies. Any illusion the film is trying to achieve is destroyed the moment that it appears on screen. The mixture of baboon and alligators are more effective, though they never quite escape the uncanny valley of CGI monsters and the giant bat things are just downright poor. The underwater snake creature has the advantage of being seen through murky waters, but even that's not enough and the massed bugs in the apartment are more laughable than terrifying.

It doesn't help that the human members of the cast don't seem that much more believable than the monsters. There isn't any depth to any of them. Edward Burns is positively adequate as the square jawed hero and Catherine McCormack is his plucky female counterpart, but they are both merely cyphers. Even the great Ben Kingsley doesn't seem to be able to muster up much interest as the billionaire villain of the piece.

It is possible that the less discerning audience will find enough here to pass the time, but the film is neither cheesy enough to be so bad it's good and isn't accomplished enough to be actually good. Chances are you will have forgotten that you ever saw it almost before the credits have rolled. It certainly doesn't live up to the legacy of the great Ray Bradbury.