Can I Blame a Butterfly in China for this Film?

Rating: 4/10 (12 May 2005)

The Butterfly Effect: 4/10: The first 40 minutes of The Butterfly Effect are tough sledding. It's not incompetent film-making mind you. If anything the film is simply too effective. Literally showing the world's worst childhood. It is so much of a downer with child molestation, baby killing and burning puppies that it's almost a Stephen King parody. I guess there is a reason we repress memories after all. I would repress that childhood as well.
The film to that point kind of reminded me of Sleepers where it was so unpleasant it didn't matter how good the movie is. It's certainly nothing I would ever want to see again. Then the movie takes a wild turn as Ashton Kutcher shows up. As easy a target as he is I hate to admit the second two-thirds of the film are really not his fault.
Some notes to writer/directors Eric Briss and J. Mackye Gruber. If your going to have scenes in a prison you might want to visit one first, or at least watch a documentary on the same. Speaking of documentaries "Revenge of the Nerds" and other eighties comedies are not a documentaries on college life. Sororities do not resemble the Playboy Mansion. And twenty-three year old crack whores often look bad but they tend not to resemble a Dawn of the Dead extra.
If The Butterfly Effect didn't keep flashing back to the puppy and baby horrors, then the second two thirds would be a hoot. There is even a "hey there is a psycho chasing me lets take a walk in the dark woods" scene.
Since Kutcher's time travel effects only his friends and family and nothing else at all. The Butterfly Effect inadvertently substantiates the reverse of the Butterfly theorem.
Needless to say the change in tone from the childhood scenes and adult scenes is jarring. Though most of the humor in the adult scenes is admittedly unintentional. Kutcher travels back in time by staring at notebook paper. I tried the same technique staring at my screen. It didn't work I still lost two hours.