E-Mail This Article to a Friend A SOUND OF THUNDER

103 MINUTES | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + suburbs

Chicago, 2050s. City life drags on, but man’s evil ways have exacted a toll on the Earth’s flora and fauna. Travis Ryer (Edward Burns) is the lead hunting guide for a time-travel outfit that takes rich assholes back to the Cretaceous to hunt dinosaurs. During one fateful "jump," a nervous client accidentally steps on a prehistoric butterfly, causing cataclysmic ripples in evolutionary time. Ryer recruits Dr. Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), the disgruntled, Cassandra-like creator of the offending technology, to set things straight before the entire planet is overrun with mutated rose bushes and ornery CGI baboons. Director Peter Hyams (Timecop) wants us to think about the consequences of screwing with nature, but an excess of technobabble and wretched dialogue obscures the cerebral themes raised in the source material, a classic sci-fi short story by Ray Bradbury. Burns still can’t carry a picture, and Kingsley is laughably bad as the corporate meanie.