2055 , Chicago , Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) an avaricious tycoon is an owner of a valuable enterprise about time machines called Tammy that is converted in a time traveler towards the Jurasik and carrying rich tourists to kill dinosaurs . Hatton receives his clients after their time safari and he likes to compare them with great explorers : Marco Polo , Christopher Columbus , Armstrong and others . Travis (Edward Burns) is a resourceful scientist at charge of the risked hunting . Scientist Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack) as invention creator warns the dangerous experiments . Thus , the machine cannot ultimately control itself and it is created a time wave similar to Tsunami which changes the earth . Then , it appears various predator animals and colossal carnivores , humans try desperately escape of weird animals and they are chased by fanged giant creatures through a leafy vegetable city .

This thrilling sci-fi picture blends suspense , tension , bone-chilling scenes , genuine scares and amount of images have you on the edge of your seat . Abundant special effects are generally made by computer generator , as it is well reflected on an amazing array of technical bizarre creatures , such as : prehistoric Allosaurius , giant eel, mutants animals , ferocious and carnivorous plants and insects developing a bloodthirsty hunger . The film is based on a Ray Bradbury novel , a short story titled ¨A Sound of Thunder¨ but are modified some deeds , in the book the fatal accident is produced during the presidential election and the winner results to be a fascist candidate , while the movie is narrated in actioner as well as spectacular style . The picture was averagely directed by Peter Hyams (replacing Renny Harlin who was fired from the producers for disagreements with Ray Bradbury) , though production was slowed when severe floods in the summer of 2002 in the Czech Republic caused considerable damage to the set . One major reason for the film's long delay is that the original production company went bankrupt during post-production , and there simply wasn't money to finish the film . Director Peter Hyams is a nice filmmaker and usual cameraman of his films , realizing good Sci-fi titles (¨Capricorn one¨ , ¨Outland¨) and even a similar movie about time travels , but better directed , such as ¨Timecop¨(1994) with Jean Claude Van Damme . Atmospheric musical score fitting to action by Nick G. Smith . The movie failed in the box office and was exhibited in 2005 , two years later its shooting . The movie was filmed in Republic Czechoslovakia with difficulties but had a lot of floods in Praga . Rating : Average but entertaining .

Yeah sure, the movie its visuals already did looked horrible and not very promising but the premise and the cast looked good, so I still sort of expected to be entertained by this movie. This however unfortunately wasn't the case. The premise is good but the story is filled with improbabilities and is logically flawed.

This movie is potential flushed down the toilet. The main plot is interesting and somewhat original. It's good enough to make a good adventurous movie out of would you think. This movie however fails to entertain and I think that that is this movie biggest flaw. Perhaps it takes itself too serious and a little bit more humor certainly wouldn't had done the movie any harm. Instead it now is nothing more than a lame and cheap looking movie, filled with the one unlikely event after the other, that also steals a bit too much from other, more successful movies. Mainely "Jurassic Park" obviously.

The characters also don't help to make the movie any more compelling or at least interesting to watch. I still think that Edward Burns did a fairly decent job as the 'heroic' main lead. The rest of the characters however really get muddled in into the movie and they get very little interesting to do. The movie rather relies on its visual, which are extremely poor. Catherine McCormack also plays a very irritating character. Basically all her character does is complain and talk about how right she was and the rest oh so wrong. Her character just isn't a likable one. And the rest of the characters...well I already have forgotten their names, I think that that is saying enough about them. It certainly is true though that Ben Kingsley's performance alone makes this movie worth watching. He is really excellent in his sort of villainous businessman role but from the moment when he disappears out of the movie the movie really goes downhill rapidly.

Visually the movie is extremely poor. It has some dreadful looking CGI effects and they couldn't even get the more simple 'blue-screen' effects look convincing in the movie. The sets are also awful and cheap looking, like they can fall over and break down every moment.

The movie never gets tense, exciting or adventurous since the story is brought in the least interesting and engaging way possible. It's a very distant movie with distant characters that fails to impress. There are plenty of action sequences but all of them are so ridicules looking and far from believable that they never get tense or good enough.

So basically this movie is lacking in everything that is needed to make a genre movie like this one a good and successful one. It's sad to see how low director Peter Hyams has sunk to the last couple of years, after making some good movies in the '70's and '80's.

4/10

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