The Butterfly Effect (2004)
I've been doing my best to avoid this movie due to the unfortunate Kutcher Factor involved in it. Sorry, but I don't see what the big deal is about Ashton Kutcher. He doesn't seem altogether that talented, I hated Just Married even though it had the lovely Brittany Murphy in it, & I just generally loathe the guy as a human being. He just rubs me the wrong way.
But anyways, it was selling like kuhrazy at Music World, Tono had said good things about it, & despite my conscience telling me otherwise, I resolved to check it out someday. That day was today, & once again, I should've listened to the voices in my head.
The Butterfly Effect is in reference to a line from Chaos Theory saying something to the extent of "the fluttering of a butterfly's wings here could start a typhoon somewheres else." Yeah, & this review I'm writing will cause a chain reaction that will eventually end up with me starring in a movie with Naomi Watts. Now's not the time to start believing in Chaos Theory. Kutcher stars as Evan, a college student afflicted by blackouts & memory loss. He's developing a theory that would allow him to recapture those memories.
Anyways, through inventor-like clumsiness, he stumbles across a way to bring back his memories, though in an altered fashion. Basically like time travel without the DeLorean. & actually going back in time as well. Apparently, if you remember things & change them in your brain, that will affect the outcome of everyone's lives. I dunno, maybe I missed a little detail or something there, but it seemed like a genuine leap of faith on the part of the filmmakers to actually expect an audience to swallow that pill.
So, by fashioning his own set of memories, the world changes, & Evan's in a better off life with his childhood sweetheart Kayley (Amy Smart). It's weird though, that in this, his better life, his mother (Melora Walters, at some points acting like she's reading cue cards) ages horribly, when in his earlier, more trying life, she didn't age at all! BIZARRE! She looked less like Kutcher's mother than his bigger sister.
It's easy to cast stones at people making time travel movies, with whatever theory they're using. There was one thing I did like though. When he fashioned his new life around the old memories & he'd deluded himself into believing he was in a new life, all the new memories that he'd never experienced came flooding into his brain, causing internal damage within Ashton Kutcher's little brain. See, I realize that yes, his theory actually works in the movie, & he does change everyone's lives as a result of his reluctance to accept the past & making up new memories. I choose to believe that he was, in fact, insane in the womb, & despite the prescence of the Donnie Darko-like ending, chose to not go through all that crap that I had to sit through. That choice of mine will let me sleep better at night. It was nice, however, to see Eric Stoltz as Zed again. 1.5 outta 5 for this one.
Roger Ebert's review of The Butterfly Effect (2004)