MOVIE REVIEW

Butterfly Effect, The  (2004)

Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Ethan Suplee
Directors: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber

Rating: R

Studio: New Line Cinema

Release Date: 01.23.04

Review Posted: 01.23.04

Spoilers: Minor

By Gregory L. Amato

Interesting Idea, Flawed Execution

Something as minor as the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can begin a chain of events that sets off a tornado in some far-off place. This is the “Butterfly Effect” of chaos theory, also seen (much less dramatically) in “Run Lola Run.” If you believe the theoretical aspect of such a premise, then it’s an easy transition to the film’s main idea, that changes in our pasts would have drastic results years down the road.

Ashton Kutcher isn’t in the film for a good part of the beginning, when we see Evan Treborn at eight and thirteen years old. The first act gives us an introduction to Evan’s unique memory condition - he has blackouts and nobody knows why - and some of his more traumatic childhood experiences. These are all neatly documented in the journals he keeps to help him remember things. When we finally see Kutcher, he’s studying psychology in college and celebrating seven years without blackouts.

But once Evan reopens a journal, he reopens his bad memories. He can also relive moments of his life where he had blacked out, with subsequent changes upon returning to the present. After the death of his old friend Kayleigh, Evan resolves to save her by reading his journals and reliving his past to improve the present.

However, it turns out to be a little more complicated than that. In reliving the past, Evan wreaks havoc on everything from his own mind to the lives of those he wants to protect. Each change he makes has both the intended consequences and many that are unintended as well; after returning from one trip to the past, he wakes up with no hands and no legs! Each attempt to repair the damage he’s caused only makes something else worse, like seeing his beloved Kayleigh become a strung-out hooker or in the arms of another man. Despite warnings from various characters, he goes back over and over, unwilling to quit until he’s fixed everything.

There’s a lot of good material to work with here, but much of it goes untapped. “The Butterfly Effect” actually seems less interested in the phenomenon of the same name than with tired one-liners (e.g., “You can’t play God”). The little substance we do get fizzles from so little attention on the screen; namely, a commentary on identity from Evan’s father and the suggestion from Evan’s roommate that repressing memories may not be such a bad thing.

Another problem is the ways the characters change after each trip to the past; they’re just not convincing. People swing so far from one way to another that it becomes almost as unbelievable as Evan’s ability to travel back in time. For example, one possible outcome for Evan’s friend Tommy is supposed to be that he finds religion and becomes a genuinely good person. Without spoiling the story I can say that the event that changes him from violent psychopath to selfless altruist just doesn’t make sense, even assuming such an outcome would be possible for an individual that predisposed to brutality. That said, the 13 year-old Tommy is played by Jesse James (a far cry from his role as the sickly Spencer in As Good As It Gets), and he is the most genuinely frightening character in the film.

In the end, “The Butterfly Effect” lacks the focus to indicate whether it takes itself seriously or not. Consequently, it doesn’t do particularly well in any area, though it isn’t all bad. The premise and much of the backstory indicate an exciting but thoughtful thriller, but in the end the use of the butterfly effect is just a gimmick, and the film doesn’t have much to say despite tapping into such rich themes. The end of the film seems especially like a copout—it requires a giant leap of faith given all the other consequences the filmmakers have concocted for us. The movie’s predictability at this point is fairly severe, and is a bit of a problem in a film that takes its title from a phenomenon that is expected to defy predictability.

Rating:  êêê  (out of 5)

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