Truly, a flight to remember!!!

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 2004)

Nothing can prepare you for the shocks and surprises in the imaginative movie "The Butterfly Effect" (*** out of ****) starring Ashton Kutcher, with Amy Smart, Elden Henson, Eric Stoltz, and Melora Walters. Not only have first-time directors J. Mackye Gruber & Eric Bress, who wrote "Final Destination 2," fashioned an original, mind-warping psychological chiller about the consequences of time travel, but also these ambitious helmers have woven skillfully into their preposterous but inventive plot a cross-section of everything good and bad about 21st century American society. Incidentally, the film derives its odd title from an idea in chaos theory that the least consequential event, such as a butterfly flying can have sweeping consequences. According to the movie's opening title card, a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia could trigger a typhoon on the other side of the globe.
Appropriating a classic science fiction premise from the twice-filmed H.W. Wells novel "The Time Machine," Gruber & Bress have managed to simplify a surefire formula without sabotaging it. First, instead of a scientific genius as the protagonist, they have given us a contemporary, black-out prone, twentysomething college student who travels back in time through his mind and learns the same lessons the Wells' hero discovered. In other words, "The Butterfly Effect" shuns glossy, sophisticated, high-tech gadgetry, so it resembles a "Twilight Zone" horror fantasy more than a gimmick riddled sci-fi saga. Second, they have omitted the usual mumbo-jumbo, pseudo-scientific explanations about the logistics of time travel that would slow down the action and relied entirely on special effects. Although the story operates on a superficial level, Gruber & Bress have endowed "Butterfly" with greater gravity than most mainstream Hollywood films dare. The action in this serious mind-bender of a melodrama features several unsavory themes, such as child molestation, animal abuse, prison rape, vandalism, and prostitution. Most people attend movies to escape from these real-life concerns, but Gruber & Bress integrate these issues into the plot.
Cast as undergraduate psychology major Evan Treborn, Kutcher discovers accidentally he can travel back in time to his childhood to right wrongs. No, he doesn't get there in a chrome-plated chariot with blinking and flashing lights. He does it in his head. You see, Evan grew up without a father. Society institutionized his dad because he was mentally unstable, and Evan apparently inherited the Treborn curse. Evan suffers recurring black outs and cannot remember what happened after those black outs. As a form of therapy, a psychologist recommends young Evan start a journal, so he can jog his memory. Thirteen years later, Evan has filled up a stack of notebooks. All he has to do relive a page from his past and change it for better or worse is to read it and he finds himself sucked back in the past.
Evan's childhood memories are horrid enough to stigmatize anybody, and his mom no longer wants him associating with his small circle of friends: Kayleigh (Amy Smart of "Rat Race"), Lenny (Elden Henson of "Idle Hands") and Kayleigh's younger brother Tommy (William Lee Scott of "Identity"). Earlier, this quartet of ne'er-do-wells found themselves in over their collective heads after they stashed a small stick of T.N.T. with a burning cigarette as its fuse in the mail box at a suburban home just so they can witness the demolition. Incidentally, "The Butterfly Effect" contains a high quotient of the most politically incorrect violence since "Final Destination 2." One sadistic lad traps a dog in a burlap bag, saturates it with kerosene, and burns the canine alive. Eventually, tough little Tommy turns against Evan when our hero gets romantic with Kayleigh. Meantime, Lenny suffers a seizure as a result of their mailbox vandalism. It doesn't help matters either that Kayleigh's pedophilic father (Eric Stoltz of "Killing Zoe" in a real acting stretch) has been making home movies and molesting his daughter. Later, Evan 's conscientious but naïve mom, Andrea (Arabian-born Melora Walters of "Cold Mountain"), decides to pull Evan out of school, and they move away to another town.
When Evan returns many years later to question Kayleigh about the home movie incident, she flies into a rage and chew him out for dredging up bad memories. The next day an angry Tommy calls Evan and reveals Kayleigh has committed suicide. As Evan pores over his journals, he finds he can go back in the past and change things for the better. The only problem is every time Evan goes back and changes things, he changes not one thing but everything, and everything winds up going from bad to worse.
Obviously, "The Butterfly Effect" isn't just another Ashton Kutcher escapade like "Dude, Where's My Car," "Just Married," or "My Boss's Daughter." This grim, heavyweight yarn about second chances & beyond furnishes Kutcher with his first straight-faced, dramatic role. Yes, Kutcher crosses over with a performance convincing and charismatic enough to give Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Dwayne Johnson, and Guy Pearce some long overdue competition. Your ability to accept Kutcher as this offbeat, tortured hero with powers to change the past will determine how willing you are to suspend your disbelief and enjoy this riveting nail biter. Mind you, "Butterfly" isn't without its flaws. Some are more obvious than others. Nevertheless, Gruber & Bress maintain enough hair-raising momentum and forge characters who earn our sympathy, so the holes in the plot fade into the background. The cast is uniformly excellent, with the younger actors excelling, especially Jesse James as an incredibly savage young Tommy Miller at age 13. Altogether, "The Butterfly Effect" is a flight to remember.