With the heartbreaking tragedy of Hurricane Katrina uppermost in my mind, I had difficulty concentrating on A Sound of Thunder. Granted, this movie overflows with cheesy special effects and less than stellar acting, so I might have felt the same way even under ordinary conditions. But I’m usually a pushover for movies -- good, bad or mediocre -- about time travel.

In this film, based on a short story by Ray Bradbury and set in the year 2055, the technology used for time traveling has fallen into the hands of a man interested in nothing but money. Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) owns a company called Time Travel Safari and charges wealthy people a bundle to send them on dinosaur hunting trips. His lead guide, Travis Ryer (Edward Burns), goes along with these questionable adventures because of his interest in studying animals. Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), inventor of the cutting edge technology, protests its application for fun and profit. She warns Hatton, Ryer and their team mates about the dangers of changing anything in the past.

Sure enough, something gets changed during one of the trips. It’s up to Travis and Sonia to find out what and how to fix it. If they don’t succeed, the future of the world and its inhabitants will be totally different -- and that future is not a pretty sight. 

Unlike The Time Machine (2002), A Sound of Thunder features a rather blah way of journeying to the past. In the former, the machine itself is quite fascinating. With spinning discs and blades on a leather barber’s chair, the contraption projects an incredible force and considerable visual excitement as it journeys through time. In the latter, participants merely suit up and undergo some kind of foggy spray -- then viola! -- they emerge from a big round hole onto a platform extending into a prehistoric period where a dinosaur soon appears in their gun sights.

Unfortunately, that dinosaur is not as realistic as the ones we’ve seen in those Jurassic Park movies. The other creatures introduced in A Sound of Thunder are similarly disappointing, especially considering recent CGI progress. A sea serpent, in particular, comes across as almost laughable.    

And that brings us to the humans, who appear more unintentionally amusing than believable. The usually brilliant  Kingsley, who won an Oscar for Gandhi, looks completely out of place in a white wig and snappy business suit. But even worse, he seems uninterested in his character and delivers a half-hearted performance here. The man he portrays is supposed to be a gung ho entrepreneur, but Kingsley shows none of the energy we expect from someone like this. Burns (15 Minutes) also lacks commitment to his character. However, in all fairness, he doesn’t have much to work with. McCormack (Spy Game) talks so fast it made me think she was an auctioneer -- and I didn’t buy anything she was selling.     

Surprisingly, despite all its faults, I’m not sorry I saw A Sound of Thunder. Director Peter Hyams (The Relic) moves things along with a brisk pace, and his film actually provides a bit of sci-fi fun. It wins my Ed Wood Award as this year’s Plan 9 from Outer Space.

(Released by Warner Bros. and rated “PG-13 “ for sci-fi violence, partial nudity and language.)