WAAAAY beyond awful! An utter disgrace in every way imaginable! This film will give you nightmares.

Rating: 1/10 (16 May 2005)

The Butterfly Effect has it all, and in huge super-sized servings. Well I was simply blown right out of my seat by this one. I can not believe it, "Ashton Kutcher you have just been Punk'd!"
Suspend disbelief, sit back and strap yourself in for the (probably final) ride of your life! Welcome to the Butterfly Zone. The most horrifying, spine chilling and unbelievable thing about this movie, beyond the gruesome, meaningless violence and horror, is that it was ever made in the first place. Mercifully this film did not seem to last any more than 5 hours at most so I was still breathing by the credits. Low and behold, further proof that there IS indeed a conspiracy going on, the IMDb users and shock horror, a gang of those so called movie critics loved this! I heard such words as "dark and intelligent" and "gripping and stylish," used to describe this film... Piffle! Dark it may be but intelligent it is not, even slightly, at ANY stage. If like me you are a sucker for hype and you're often left bemused by what junk gets praised these days then you absolutely HAVE to see this film, it really has to be seen to be believed.
I often babble about how so many 'thought provoking'(I use the term loosely, reflecting on recent films of this breed) films just don't have anything happening in them. So let me get this films plus points out of the way quickly, + has many things happen in it. Unfortunately we will now have to move swiftly on to the negative. - has many stupid things happen in it, bad acting, stupendously outrageous storyline, Ashton's hair is more animated than he is, sooooooooo bleak and depressing you may well need to be rushed away for immediate psychiatric treatment and just so utterly stupid that anyone who considers it 'deep' must surely be smoking the green stuff or they have suffered such horrific trauma at the hands of this disaster film that they can no longer be considered the full article. OK a bit OTT, I believe we all have a right to our own opinions, and to each his own but I just could not wish this film upon anyone. You have been warned.
*spoilers* Well I won't go too deep into the story as I simply do not have the will, but if you're expecting an intelligent time travel tale with a meaningful moral message about dwelling on the past, like I was, sorry but this is not the movie for you. There are so many plot holes in here and the ending (which ever one you have been burdened with) is just sooo poor your head will probably implode. If only the directors had been more creative and had the decency to finish this up in a way that explained away the preceding hour and a half of complete and utter nonsense and buffoonery as the fantasy of a dangerous and deluded psychopath then they may have just got away with some sort of credibility. What they provide is an unbearable and lame, not to mention pathetically executed, 10 minutes of further lunatic behavior with Ashton even running around like a demented gorilla! Fabulous! The possibility of it all being a silly fantasy is seemingly offered but then events get even sillier and by the time you have seen the ending you don't even care either way. What happened in this film? Where do I begin, well this film features Ashton's character getting his arms and legs blown off which contributes to his mum getting cancer (was that the same story strand? I can't remember and don't care), a dog getting burned alive in a sack, a pedophile daddy, kids murdering each other AND a mother with child, people committing suicide and getting blown up and a whole lot of other poop. You think I am making this up? So would I if I hadn't seen the film! All of it might make some sense to someone and might be watchable to someone and might even be entertaining to someone but my advice to the latter would be "seek urgent psychiatric attention!" Had the whole thing not been so hilariously lame (while taking itself SOOOOO seriously) to the point of being passable as a low form of comedy it could have been seriously damaging to anybodies mental well being. Some of that stuff could have been considered as part of the story but most of it, like the film, is completely unnecessary. It was like this rubbish was stuck in to make the film hard hitting and perhaps make up for the fact that the script could not deliver any punch so some disturbing images were ready to fill in for it instead. Nice try guys, but it just didn't work. You will be glued to the screen alright and you'll feel ashamed for it, but you'll be looking for some method to the madness, something good to come out of all this bad taste and even worse acting, sorry, there is no deep meaning, there is no thought behind it all. This is just a bad movie, too bad, they exist and that's a fact of life, but I had to come back and see for myself that, YES, it WAS given 7.6! There was also rampant discussion about how intelligent and profound it was, and how if you move the t in the main character's name it spells Event Reborn, wooooooooo, that really freaked me out, I almost fell out of my seat. Good God!