PETER HYAMS

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BB

United Kingdom/USA/Germany/Czech Republic, 2005.  Franchise Pictures, Crusader Entertainment, ApolloMedia Distribution, Baldwin Entertainment Group, Coco, Dante Entertainment, ETIC Films, Epsilon Motion Pictures, Film 111, Forge, Jericho Productions Ltd., MFF, Matrix Film Finance, Networxx – Film Management, QI Quality International GmbH & Co. KG, Scenario Lane Productions, Signature Pictures.  Screen story by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Screenplay by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Gregory Poirier, based on the short story by Ray Bradbury.  Cinematography by Peter Hyams.  Produced by Karen Elise Baldwin, Moshe Diamant.  Music by Nick Glennie-Smith.  Production Design by Richard Holland.  Costume Design by Sakina Msa, Esther Walz.  Film Editing by Sylvie Landra.

Laughably inept science-fiction adventure has an auspicious premise but is ruined by bad direction and weakly unimpressive special effects. Edward Burns plays the head of a scientific research lab whose futuristic time machine allows their rich boss to take multi-millionaire clients back to prehistoric times to shoot dinosaurs and pay through the nose for the experience. The only important rule is that nothing on their trips can be altered in the slightest bit, or else history and evolution could be affected to a devastating degree.

On one trip to the past, something goes wrong, and the crew returns to present day to find the entire world is suffering the wrath of time waves that render 22nd century New York a treacherous jungle swarming with half-baboon, half-lizard-like creatures. Now, Burns and company have to hook up with the brainy scientist (Catherine McCormack) who invented the machine and find a way to undo the damage. The story, inspired (but hardly the fault of) a work by Ray Bradbury, is imaginative, but the film plays out like a tired retread of Jurassic Park with a bunch of embarrassed actors. Even technophiles will be disappointed by the anticlimactic action scenes and the cheap computer graphics. The title is taken from a poem by William Woodsworth.