Movie Review!
I rented Butterfly Effect 2 this weekend against my better judgement. I knew it was going to be awful, but curiosity got the better of me. There is a reason it went straight to video. It is SO bad.
Butterfly Effect was so good that it managed to become one of my favorite time travel/alternate reality movies ever, and Ashton even managed not to screw it up.
Butterfly Effect 2 was like when Ashton tried to redo the past and made everything horribly worse.
The movie starts with a photo of four friends partying on a beach. Our first is the protagonist, Nick, who looks like a younger Ben Affleck, and his girlfriend, Julie, played by an actress with big old Angelina Jolie lips. Then there is his best friend, who looks and talks like Shaggy (the cartoon, not the rapper), and Shaggy’s fiancé Amanda, who is no longer important in the story.
Julie:
(try as I might, I can't seem to pull myself into this photo)
Nick takes Julie aside and convinces her to stay with him instead of moving to NY for art school. We also find out she is pregnant while the boys are away. Then, work calls, and instead of not ruining his girlfriend’s birthday, he takes them all home. On the way down the winding canyon road, Julie takes a foreshadowing picture of Nick. Ten seconds later, one of the tires blows, and a truck slams into them.
ONE YEAR LATER we see Nick in his alcoholic depressed life. His friends are all dead, and he spends his days at his miserable job getting headaches and nosebleeds and assuring his mom that he’s okay. Apparently he works at a startup company trying to develop a new phone that will make slideshows for you. His coworker, Bristol, who is a total jerk, got the big promotion instead of him. Before a presentation Bristol tells him not to “have another brainfart and F this up.” Sure enough, during the slide show that the phone created about itself, big-time brainfart. Nick takes a week off and spends it drinking and looking at pictures of dead people.
Nick decides to look at that picture his girlfriend took of him 10 seconds before she died, because that’s the smart thing to do when you’re depressed. You guessed it, the images in the picture start moving (really poorly too, I think they just shook the camera) and Nick finds himself in the car, telling Julie to put her seatbelt on. For some reason this saves Shaggy and his fiancé too. He wakes up a year later to find all kinds of girly crap in his apartment! Then he has mindblowing sex with Julie. This part of the movie I enjoyed. That girl is really good looking. Trevor does something stupid at work, Nick stands up for him, and Bristol fires them both. And then Julie dumps him. Nick starts drinking and looking at pictures. He does a little google research by typing in ‘headaches’ and ‘nosebleeds’ into Google and finds a picture of Ashton’s dad on the third hit. He explains to his mom that he needs to go back and fix things again, and she says he’s sounding like his father. Up until this point the movie was only ‘bad,’ now things take a turn towards ‘nauseating.’
Nick finds a picture of an old Christmas party with him and Bristol, warps in there, and proceeds to spill wine all over Bristol. This has nothing to do with the plot, and it was really just immature. Then he sneaks off to Bristol’s office and steals a file from his desk. Apparently possession of this file gets you a raise, because a year later we find Nick in the VP office with Bristol at Nick’s old desk. Nick has a fancy car and gets to park right next to the front door. Nick spends the day working and making sarcastic comments to Bristol. He does not even think about Julie until quitting time, when he gives her a call with no answer.
That night, Nick goes to meet a client with the Boss and Boss’ Daughter (who has not been mentioned before this scene). Nick seems at first not to know anything about the meeting, presumably because he just arrived in that timeline. But then he nails the pitch and seals the deal. There is a horrible visual pun about dancing wallets involved. Then he goes into the bathroom and has sex with the Boss’ Daughter for no apparent reason, still not knowing Julie’s fate. They take pictures of themselves on his crazy phone. Perhaps with the intent of making a slideshow later.
Now Shaggy is in trouble because one of their investors wants his money back, despite a clear contract stating when he’ll get paid. Apparently this guy is in the Mafia or army or something. Nick asks for the money from the Boss, and does not understand the sarcastic response of “That’s nothing, just write yourself a check.” Turns out the client changed his mind for no reason and they are bankrupt. He and Shaggy go to the investor’s club, where they meet Julie, who is now happy with her new jerk of a man. Nick expresses his love, then goes to the meeting, which doesn’t seem to make Julie happy.
During the meeting, the investor kills Shaggy by throwing him through a table and starts shooting randomly into the crowd. Nick grabs Julie and throws her around the corner. He accidently smashes her head open while doing so. Oops. As the investor is coming after Nick with the gun, he gets the phone out and looks at pictures of him and Boss’ Daughter. As he is pulling himself into the photo, he gets knocked out.
He wakes up in a bed with someone fellating him under the covers. Reread that sentence if it destroyed your brain the first time. He thinks its Boss’ Daughter, but nope! Turns out it’s the investor’s male thug. He puts his clothes on and they fight. Nick gives his mom a call and is told that his father killed himself years ago and she never had the heart to tell him. He decides to give it one more shot, and finds the picture of the four of them at the beach. Off we go.
This time, she does tell him she’s pregnant, but he says she should go to art school and they are breaking up. She is so mad, she gets in the car and starts DRIVING HOME. Nick steals a car and starts chasing after her. Seriously, at this point I’m not even surprised. He chases her and they are side by side on the winding canyon road yelling at each other through the windows. He convinces her to pull over just in time. Then the truck starts coming and he is still on the wrong side of the road. So he throws himself off the cliff instead. Seriously, he should have just hit the truck. Then ONE YEAR LATER we see Julie happily in art school with little Nick Jr. and no Nick. The baby looks at a picture and it starts shaking. A picture of something that happened to him before he was even born!
Both movies demonstrated that the best solution is to let go of something you love. Please, directors, you may be tempted to try to make up for this turd by making Butterfly Effect 3, but in the end, its better for everyone if you just let the script walk out of your life and into the garbage. But really, why did you ever mess with a good thing in the first place?
Butterfly Effect was so good that it managed to become one of my favorite time travel/alternate reality movies ever, and Ashton even managed not to screw it up.
Butterfly Effect 2 was like when Ashton tried to redo the past and made everything horribly worse.
The movie starts with a photo of four friends partying on a beach. Our first is the protagonist, Nick, who looks like a younger Ben Affleck, and his girlfriend, Julie, played by an actress with big old Angelina Jolie lips. Then there is his best friend, who looks and talks like Shaggy (the cartoon, not the rapper), and Shaggy’s fiancé Amanda, who is no longer important in the story.
Julie:
(try as I might, I can't seem to pull myself into this photo)
Nick takes Julie aside and convinces her to stay with him instead of moving to NY for art school. We also find out she is pregnant while the boys are away. Then, work calls, and instead of not ruining his girlfriend’s birthday, he takes them all home. On the way down the winding canyon road, Julie takes a foreshadowing picture of Nick. Ten seconds later, one of the tires blows, and a truck slams into them.
ONE YEAR LATER we see Nick in his alcoholic depressed life. His friends are all dead, and he spends his days at his miserable job getting headaches and nosebleeds and assuring his mom that he’s okay. Apparently he works at a startup company trying to develop a new phone that will make slideshows for you. His coworker, Bristol, who is a total jerk, got the big promotion instead of him. Before a presentation Bristol tells him not to “have another brainfart and F this up.” Sure enough, during the slide show that the phone created about itself, big-time brainfart. Nick takes a week off and spends it drinking and looking at pictures of dead people.
Nick decides to look at that picture his girlfriend took of him 10 seconds before she died, because that’s the smart thing to do when you’re depressed. You guessed it, the images in the picture start moving (really poorly too, I think they just shook the camera) and Nick finds himself in the car, telling Julie to put her seatbelt on. For some reason this saves Shaggy and his fiancé too. He wakes up a year later to find all kinds of girly crap in his apartment! Then he has mindblowing sex with Julie. This part of the movie I enjoyed. That girl is really good looking. Trevor does something stupid at work, Nick stands up for him, and Bristol fires them both. And then Julie dumps him. Nick starts drinking and looking at pictures. He does a little google research by typing in ‘headaches’ and ‘nosebleeds’ into Google and finds a picture of Ashton’s dad on the third hit. He explains to his mom that he needs to go back and fix things again, and she says he’s sounding like his father. Up until this point the movie was only ‘bad,’ now things take a turn towards ‘nauseating.’
Nick finds a picture of an old Christmas party with him and Bristol, warps in there, and proceeds to spill wine all over Bristol. This has nothing to do with the plot, and it was really just immature. Then he sneaks off to Bristol’s office and steals a file from his desk. Apparently possession of this file gets you a raise, because a year later we find Nick in the VP office with Bristol at Nick’s old desk. Nick has a fancy car and gets to park right next to the front door. Nick spends the day working and making sarcastic comments to Bristol. He does not even think about Julie until quitting time, when he gives her a call with no answer.
That night, Nick goes to meet a client with the Boss and Boss’ Daughter (who has not been mentioned before this scene). Nick seems at first not to know anything about the meeting, presumably because he just arrived in that timeline. But then he nails the pitch and seals the deal. There is a horrible visual pun about dancing wallets involved. Then he goes into the bathroom and has sex with the Boss’ Daughter for no apparent reason, still not knowing Julie’s fate. They take pictures of themselves on his crazy phone. Perhaps with the intent of making a slideshow later.
Now Shaggy is in trouble because one of their investors wants his money back, despite a clear contract stating when he’ll get paid. Apparently this guy is in the Mafia or army or something. Nick asks for the money from the Boss, and does not understand the sarcastic response of “That’s nothing, just write yourself a check.” Turns out the client changed his mind for no reason and they are bankrupt. He and Shaggy go to the investor’s club, where they meet Julie, who is now happy with her new jerk of a man. Nick expresses his love, then goes to the meeting, which doesn’t seem to make Julie happy.
During the meeting, the investor kills Shaggy by throwing him through a table and starts shooting randomly into the crowd. Nick grabs Julie and throws her around the corner. He accidently smashes her head open while doing so. Oops. As the investor is coming after Nick with the gun, he gets the phone out and looks at pictures of him and Boss’ Daughter. As he is pulling himself into the photo, he gets knocked out.
He wakes up in a bed with someone fellating him under the covers. Reread that sentence if it destroyed your brain the first time. He thinks its Boss’ Daughter, but nope! Turns out it’s the investor’s male thug. He puts his clothes on and they fight. Nick gives his mom a call and is told that his father killed himself years ago and she never had the heart to tell him. He decides to give it one more shot, and finds the picture of the four of them at the beach. Off we go.
This time, she does tell him she’s pregnant, but he says she should go to art school and they are breaking up. She is so mad, she gets in the car and starts DRIVING HOME. Nick steals a car and starts chasing after her. Seriously, at this point I’m not even surprised. He chases her and they are side by side on the winding canyon road yelling at each other through the windows. He convinces her to pull over just in time. Then the truck starts coming and he is still on the wrong side of the road. So he throws himself off the cliff instead. Seriously, he should have just hit the truck. Then ONE YEAR LATER we see Julie happily in art school with little Nick Jr. and no Nick. The baby looks at a picture and it starts shaking. A picture of something that happened to him before he was even born!
Both movies demonstrated that the best solution is to let go of something you love. Please, directors, you may be tempted to try to make up for this turd by making Butterfly Effect 3, but in the end, its better for everyone if you just let the script walk out of your life and into the garbage. But really, why did you ever mess with a good thing in the first place?