Let me share two things with you before I begin:

1) I don't watch That '70s Show, so I only know Ashton Kutcher from the media, really, and I have a positive impression of him.

2) I watched this film with three other people. Two of them were adults (I'm including myself in there, but I'm probably wrong for doing so...), and one fourteen-year old female, who had already seen the film three times in the last two days. All three of them liked it a lot.

Those are just teeny, tiny things to keep in mind.

The Premise:

There is a theory called the Chaos Effect. At the beginning of this film, it talks about the fact that if a butterfly flaps its wings at the right time in the right place, it can cause a typhoon on the other side of the world, or some such nonsense. Right. This happens all the time.

(If you want to go more in-depth on the Chaos Effect, feel free to, I don't care about it.)

The reason they use this premise, I'm assuming, is to illustrate the fact that one small thing, or the changing of one small thing, can completely upset the entire balance of the world.

Or, as the movie tag line says: Change One Thing, Change Everything.

Or as I say, bite me.

This Premise As Used For A Plot:

Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher, and two other actors who play him at different ages) is a small boy with a problem. When something traumatic occurs, he blacks out.

When he wakes up, he can't remember the event.

However, when he reads his journal, it takes him back to that event, and he can see what happened and change it if he so chooses.

However, as we've learned from the Chaos Theory, changing one small thing can completely upset the entire balance of the world. Or in this case, Evan's world.

Keep that in mind till the end if you will.

As The World Turns, Regarding Evan:

Here, in a nutshell, are Evan's problems, and his current situation, at the age of around eight or nine:

*His teacher shows his mother a picture that Evan drew in class. It shows Evan on top of several people with a knife in his hand, and he's clearly enjoying having killed them.

*Evan's mom walks into the kitchen one day, and Evan is holding a knife. (Cue the music to The Twilight Zone.) Evan drops the knife, and says he had a blackout.

*Evan's father is in prison. Why? Because he has the same thing as Evan does!!! Only his father committed some heinous crime, and is pretty much insane.

*Evan's mom talks to a doctor, and he says to encourage Evan to keep a journal of his daily life. Perhaps this will help him remember things.

*Evan has a crush on a little girl who lives in the neighborhood. Her name is Kayleigh (Amy Smart is the adult Kayleigh). Only Kayleigh's little brother Tommy (William Lee Scott, adult) seems to be possessed by the devil, and Kayleigh's father seems fond of inviting boys he hardly knows (yeah, right) down into the basement, to film these boys having sex with his young daughter.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Yes, this one little boy not only has this "blackout" problem, but his father is a psychopath, Satan lives in his neighborhood, Satan's dad is sexually abusive to children, and Evan keeps a journal that no one apparently reads except Evan, and my goodness can he draw and write well for his age.

The Big Trauma That Starts It All

Well, Evan waking up naked in Kayleigh's basement with her father filming them is the first big trauma, but Evan doesn't remember it.

The really huge trauma that seems to change them all, however, is one that happens a few years later, and now involves another neighbor named Lenny, the stereotypical fat kid (but of course).

**Keep in mind they are young teenagers now.**

Tommy, aka Satan, finds a stick of dynamite in one of his father's drawers. Yeah, that happens a lot, too. After finding this, Tommy squeals, "Let's go blow the sh*t out of something!!!"

(Does Evan object? No. Does Kayleigh object? No. Which made me love them even more!)

As he runs with the dynamite, Evan, Kayleigh, and Lennie follow him. Tommy tells Lennie to go put it in someone's mailbox. While they wait for it to blow up, they stand there smoking cigarettes, looking quite nonchalant, like they're waiting for a dog to fart. But Evan, the true gentlemen (*barf*) puts his hands over precious Kayleigh's ears so the big loud boom won't hurt her. **Awwwww**

What happens next is traumatic, so of course Evan doesn't remember.

Fast Forward To Evan In College

Evan is doing great now. He hasn't had a blackout in years, and he's studying psychology, and the role of memory in who-the-hell-cares.

For a roommate they give him some gross blob of a dork, who weighs in at close to 400 pounds, and who's always having sex with a prostitute. Uh huh...

Anyhoo, something triggers Evan's memory of that day in Kayleigh's basement with her father. Evan has to know what happened.

Evan drives back to his hometown, and visits Kayleigh. She doesn't respond well to seeing him, as he promised when he moved that he would come back for her. He even made a sign that he held in the car window. But he forgot to come back.

On top of all that, the memories Evan wants her dig up nearly undo her. Basically she tells him to f*ck off.

Evan goes back to school, and there's a message on his machine from Tommy/Satan, who gives him some horrible news, and also threatens him.

What's A Boy To Do???

Why, go back into his journals of course, which must contain a time travel chip in the spiral bindings or something, because as soon as he reads a passage, he is taken back to the moment he is reading about. (I wonder if they sell these at Office Max?)

So of course he goes back to the day in Kayleigh's basement. And he does everything differently, hoping this will change the awful outcome he apparently brought about by his visit with Kayleigh.

What Is Wrong With This Film?

Oh, I don't have that much time, but I'll try and condense it.

**First of all, the movie betrays the initial premise it's based on. If Evan goes back in time and changes something, he then should have no memory of how things were before the change. If he changes what happened in the basement, it never happened. He erased it. For all time. So essentially, his life should pick up with no memory of it at all.

Instead, he changes what happened, but when that makes things worse, he goes back and changes something else. And this happens over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

And you can't do that. Not only because it betrays your premise, but because it makes him look like a total idiot. If he's so smart, why can't he figure out the one thing he could change that would make everything all right?

It's ridiculous. And it's so poorly executed, I can't even tell you.

**Tommy as Satan. In his teens, this kid is about 3'2" and I'm being generous. But we're supposed to believe that he can take out several men in their twenties, rip a pole out of the floor, pummel them with it, and basically turn into SuperAs shole on steroids. Uh... no.

**Kayleigh has no personality. Why in the world would Evan like her? Oh wait, Evan has none either. So they're perfect for each other.

**The character of Evan is never, ever, ever fleshed out. Even as a child, he has no real character traits. He's neither likable or unlikable. He just exists.

As a teenager, it's worse. He's a follower of Tommy, and a gutless coward for being so. So now he becomes unlikable (for that and a few other things).

And didn't his mother ever wonder why her son was so different after coming home from Kayleigh's after that fateful day in the basement? Does she never read his journals, or find out who she's leaving her child with? Oh, don't even get me started... Okay, where was I?...

So Evan is an adult now, and he turns into Ashton Kutcher! But it's too late, even for Ashton, to save this awful character they've written for him.

**Everything Evan changes, he screws up. And I don't mean in small ways. I mean in "oh you've got to be kidding me" ways.

**This movie is poorly cast and poorly directed.

**After the first forty-five minutes, which are fairly engaging, I will say, I started looking at my watch and shaking my head.

**So many things get changed, that you can't even remember anymore why they were changed in the first place, or what happened to who, or why he is where he is, or why he ends up where he ends up (you wouldn't believe me if I told you).

**And this supernatural notebook thing is just a complete joke. When he reads it, it's like an earthquake hits, and he's in another world!!!

Bottom Line

I didn't care about Evan. I didn't care about Kayleigh. I despised little Tommy, but he was made so unbelievable, I can't honestly say that I ever saw him as human.

I can suspend my disbelief, but if you insist on pounding on it with a two-ton sledgehammer, I guarantee it will fall. And it will spill all over your movie, Mr. Bress, and Mr. Gruber.

In the hands of a seasoned writer, and a director of some caliber, this movie may have had promise. As it stands, it was written and directed by Eric Bress (first-time director) and J. Mackye Gruber. The only two things these gentlemen have ever done before is the movie Blunt. (There's probably a good reason why I haven't heard of it. Have you?) Oh, and Final Destination 2. Sounds like another winner.

I don't know what Kutcher was thinking when he signed on to do this film. Although I will say he was decent with the crap he had to work with.

The rest of the cast is B-List, with the exception of Eric Stoltz (as Kayleigh's lovely father), and Melora Walters as Evan's mother.

This film, in every way, is an insult to every brain cell that you have inside your head.

And I just watched House Of 1,000 Corpses, which one could say the same thing about, but I liked that one. Why? Because it had some interesting characters, and people that I cared about. Stupid as all hell, but it did what it was supposed to.

The Butterfly Effect is supposed to be a psychological thriller. (Hold on, I'm getting the giggles.)

It is the equivalent of watching two hours of --- no, wait, the first forty-five minutes were all right -- it is the equivalent of watching one hour and fifteen minutes of George W. Bush and Dan Quayle taking their SATs, and then debating the English part of it. And I might even be "misunderestimating" the pain of that. The movie is much worse.

However, two adults in this household thought it was "very good".

(But sssshhhhh they're both insane!)

Run from this film at all costs, unless you're 14!! 'Cause if you're 14, Ashton Kutcher is sooooooooo hot!!

'Nuff said?

Thank you.

P.S. I preferred the Director's Cut ending, if that means anything at all. Too bad the writers didn't use this ending first, which would have spared us the entire film to begin with. :) (I'm done ranting now, I swear to God.)








Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older