Butterfly Effect
"It is said that the flap of a butterfly's wings can cause a tidal wave halfway across the planet." That's the actual butterfly effect, the place this movie draws its title. In the film Ashton Kutcher of "That 70's Show" fame plays Evan Treborn. Evan isn't your typical kid. When he is young (which the film spends ample time chronicling) he has blackouts where he can't recall what he did or didn't do while in the minutes he was blacking out. His father was the same way, he was eventually instiutionalized to keep from hurting Evan. Evan has a good friend, Kayleigh (played by Amy Smart), who has a brother, Tommy. Kayleigh and Tommy's dad is a pervert who makes kiddie porn with his daughter and Evan one day in the family basement. Tommy loses his mind and bad stuff happens that forces Evan to move out of town. The film picks up when Evan is in college trying to find out more about his condition. He reads through his old journals (an idea a therapist had to help him remember what happens during the blackouts) and weird things start to happen. It's like he's transported back to the time of the memory. He confronts his old friends about the memories that he blacked out on and eventually causes the suicide of Kayleigh. Thus he starts to go back in time and try to change the future, and the butterfly flaps his wings, how big will the tidal wave be?
The movie is great. That is to say the overall movie considering the acting, story, and plot progression. I had reservations going into this film with lead-man Ashton Kutcher. I don't like his role on "That 70's Show" and I haven't liked his other excursions into "acting". He really pulls it off in this film though. Near the end it seemed as though he was starting to lose his grip on the character but for the most part he does a good job.
The story is really good. Watching the film reminded me of "Donnie Darko" but this film didn't have the explanations that "Donnie Darko" did. That's the only real downside to the film in my opinion. The whole time travel bit is simply described as a family curse and that's not enough for this movie fan. None of the characters motivations are ever clearly drawn out and that detracts from the film.
All things consider the good outweigh the bad in Ashton's first foray into serious cinema. The story is great, the acting is good, the only thing that lacked was the depth of the story. The directors seemed only to care that Evan loved Kayleigh and figured that would do for the audience. I didn't buy it, but I did enjoy the film none the less. The imagery is very blunt, and the film is definitely dark, but it is worth a look.
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for violence, sexual content, language and brief drug use.