April 15, 2015

  • A Sound Signifying Something

    Peter Hyams (Narrow Margin, The Relic, Outland) has a penchant for action adventure thrillers and this adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story sort of flew under the radar.  A Sound of Thunder has as its premise the effects of time travel and how changing the past will forever impact the future.  Set in 2055, big game hunter Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) has made a fortune off creating adventure hunts for dinosaurs.  Unfortunately, these interferences begin to impact weather patterns in the “present” and effect other life forms as well.  Regardless, the film suffered from poor effects execution and bombed at the box office helped little by being released during Labor Day weekend.  The score is by Nick Glennie-Smith, oft-orchestrator from Media Ventures/Remote Control.  While A Sound of Thunder may not quite be The Rock, it does have some great action music.

    The score has a great main theme, which is featured in a beautiful exposition in “Ancestor.”  One interesting aspect of the adventure sequences is the use of a “ticking” rhythmic pattern that is used both subtly (“Main Title”, “Middleton/Butterfly”, or in the tension building “Access Denied”) and perhaps with a bit more insistence in “Rules/Time Jump”.  “Major Problem” does an equally good job of creating tension through a blend of sinuous melodic material that wavers toward unisons before moving outward again and once the action music comes to the foreground it is off and running easily.  Percussion tends to have a somewhat rock-like feel at times against the orchestral textures that are used.   This serves to drive the music forward.  The interesting Goldsmith-like pulses that insistently run under scurrying strings in “Eruption” is effective.  “Time Wave” is a good example of laying out very brief thematic thread.  There are moments when the sequencing ideas are integrated as well (“Access Denied”) blending orchestral sounds well as the other sounds and effects help create extra propulsion and energy (which works equally well in “Cab Ride”).  The most MV-sounding track though comes with the climactic punches of “Tami’s Hard Drive”.  The presentation closes out with a great extended “suite” for the end credit roll.

    A Sound of Thunder is like many scores for bad films, a very effective and exciting work with interesting themes and development.  The result will be a guilty pleasure for fans of similar action scores (think Deep Rising or The Relic perhaps), though this one is a cut above many of the MV backdrops.  This is the first release from Dragon’s Domain Records which is being distributed through BSX Records and is a limited edition of 1500 copies.  The booklet is well done with great notes by Randall D. Larson.