Depends on your perspective

Rating: 7/10 (19 January 2009)

i'll begin this review by assuming that the person reading this review has not actually seen the movie yet, and that they are trying to make a decision as to whether or not.
First issue I'm sure is bugging a good portion of the potential audience in limbo is the fact this movie features Ashton Kutcher as lead role. Surprisingly, he doesn't ruin the movie, and even more surprisingly he plays his part good enough to make the viewer forget its actually Ashton Kutcher playing the role. Meaning, the actor doesn't overshadow the character. Something that's considered hard to do, and virtually impossible for a 'name' actor to do. Ashton pulls this off very effectively. Only one sentence at one point in the movie does he even sound like 'Ashton Kutcher' when he speaks, and he sinks himself into his role convincingly enough to not ever 'act' like Ashton Kutcher. If this is your biggest pet-peeve with this movie, I would suggest you go see it.
Next aspect is probably the premise of the movie, which in many cases is the main aspect actually making most consider seeing this movie. The premise, although not mind-blowingly original, still manages to be interesting and entertaining. I'm sure most are at least vaguely familiar with it, as it has allusions in many other works. To summarize as easily as possible without spoiling any part of the movie; the idea is the hypothetical 'what if' you could go back in time and change the past to affect the present, however be careful what you wish for as even the slightest change in the past can affect the present in drastic ways.
The execution is the other half to this. A constant dark tone, characterized early on from some startlingly unforeshadowed warped scenes and generally down-beat character moods set the stage for a movie about mystery and the unexpected. The mood-setting and tone are good, above what most movies manage to depict, and definitely manage to work emotion out of the viewer to match the actions going on on screen. The first 60% of the movie is virtually perfect in its execution, captures all it aims for with captivating intensity.
But later on movie inconsistencies and redundancies occur that are bad enough to make a movie that otherwise could very well keep you up thinking all night into something that's easy to discredit. Character actions later on in the movie (without spoiling anything) that are so unrealistic and virtually impossible to identify with that it almost completely undermines many key scenes and points of the movie.
Now this isn't an acting problem, the acting in the movie is great. Like I stated earlier as to Ashton's role in the movie, the supporting cast does a wonderful job as well. And in a movie all apart radical change, the cast fills their different shoes as well as anyone could.
The problem is (sadly) a script/writing issue. And its so sad because it could have been fixed so easily if just given a couple more months of work.
Now I rate this movie 7 out of 10 not out of impulse. Don't think I'm rating this movie out-of-scale to try and dictate a bad rating. I may have emphasized its flaws a lot, but it has more than enough positive points to work its way back up the scale. If its writing was given just a little more effort, this could have easily obtained a 9 or 10 out of 10.
In conclusion, this movie may bug you, but mostly because it gets so close to perfection that its a sad thing it couldn't have been pushed those extra steps. This movie is certainly thought-provoking (I'm not talking about particular complexity, but the hypothetical is powerfully-executed enough to make you think), emotionally-moving, and all-in-all entertaining.