The Butterfly Effect Didn't Effect !

Rating: 2/10 (1 December 2007)

This script had a lot of ambition to make something different: a sci-fi thriller with a new idea, dark atmosphere, AND something to say. However, that same script nearly killed itself by its own hands!
Firstly, that "something" that it wanted to say. Is it about how we mustn't fall in love, so our life will be so happy? Or we must travel through time to change it till we actually make it as good as possible?! The main disaster here is that the movie, till its last minutes, was assuring that every try to modify the fate was a contribution to realize fate's high will. But, at the end, they put ridiculously such a fabricated finale to confirm concepts which were utterly contradictory compared to all what was said from the very start. Hence, the message of the whole thing became something like "If you cancel love from your life, it'll be fine"!
Maybe the best thing that this end told us was that any try to repeat the past would never be in the interest of its doer, as your objection to your own fate would make you lose. Though, originally, the movie's premise was based on how God has complicated plans, therefore when (Kutcher) was traveling in time, he was just achieving that mysterious omnipotent plan. So why did that script continue the playing, to end up with stopping the drama at another failure round, in despite of (Kutcher)'s discovering for the truth about the upper hand of fate all along?!
I think the lost storyline here, from the beginning, is about how this lead will never bear his life as it is. Because he, like us, can't play God. He only can be a human; himself. But when he settled down peacefully in another time, yet lost his only love, the movie didn't say "make peace with your life, to live it as better as you can", No, it said: "Don't try to mess with fate", otherwise you may lose, as we already knew by watching the whole thing, as if this is a loop of a movie, with nothing but empty circles that say the same thing, many times, boringly!
Maybe they wanted to make a compromise of an end; not to end it tragically for the fear of low profits, or to end it happily with the lead finally living in harmony with his life. Or maybe they suspended it in a way, to have the opportunity of making a sequel; as they already did 2 years later! But whatever, THIS ENDING made the effect of (Butterfly Effect) weaker, or out of focus. And compared to all what was before it, it's irrelevant and dumb!
Aside from that annoying ending, and unquiet meaning, things weren't much better. The script manipulated its characters unwisely. For instance, when the lead finds himself in a collage with his girlfriend, he suddenly finds out that he has a spoiled attitude! Well, how can his personality change to treat his friends badly, then wonder about it?! Plus, the tragedy of (Ashton Kutcher) pale face and performance. It's so hard on him to handle such a role. To tell you the truth, (John Patrick Amedori), the child who played his character in some scenes, was more powerful than him. And, forever and ever, the nudity was unnecessary, degraded, and disgusting way to sell the movie, any movie for that matter!
To be fair, I liked the main idea, some efforts done by the 2 directors, (Eric Bress) and (J. Mackye Gruber), while dealing with the thrilling moments, (Amedori) acting, and that's it!
All in all, it was creative idea for a movie which turned out to be not that creative itself, and ended up as one of the dullest, and muddiest, movies ever dealt with time travel.