Kutcher answers his critics with the very good Butterfly Effect

Rating: 9/10 (30 January 2004)

If one had read any of the recent publicity surrounding The Butterfly Effect or Ashton Kutcher, that person, myself included, could hardly be blamed for expecting the worse. In case you missed it here's a quick rundown: 1. Cameron Crowe decided not to go with Kutcher in Elizabethtown supposedly because of his lack of acting ability 2. The Butterfly Effect was supposedly laughed out of The Sundance Film Festival 3. For some unexplained reason Kutcher was left uncredited in Cheaper By The Dozen 4. The January release date meant the film was being dumped.
On a lazy wet winter day in Northern California, my companion and I decided to brave all and take in a movie. With January pickings being what they are, we had narrowed our choice down to Mona Lisa Smile or The Butterfly Effect. As it turned out, Mona Lisa had already packed her bags and left town so The Butterfly Effect won out by default. Neither of us had much hope.
About thirty minutes into The Butterfly Effect I looked at my companion, she looked back at me and it was the good old "Hey, this is a good movie" kind of look. It's hard to say which of us was more surprised or more pleased.
In any film about time travel, there is always going to be plot holes. It kind of goes with the territory. In some films these holes are so big you could fly a 747 through them. In others they are small enough that you see them, but are willing to forgive them because the film is good enough that you don't really care to do the nit picking necessary to dig them out. Butterfly effect falls into the latter category, with a good script and a story that grabs you from the beginning and doesn't let go of you. You can thank J. Mackeye Gruber and Eric Bress for directing and writing a story that pretty much covers the bases.
Butterfly Effect deals with the time honored story about what would happen if one could change the past. This concept has been covered in good films before such as what happened in It's A Wonderful Life if George Bailey had never been born or Marty McFly's adventures in Back To The Future. In the 1980 film The Final Countdown the writers had a chance to become a defining film in this genre but copped out in the last moments of the film. The Butterfly Effect does not cop out.
A good portion of the early moments of the film, explain the horrid childhood and catastrophic events that befall Evan Treborn and his friends. Yet, we do not witness the entirety of these events, as Evan suffers from blackouts, and when he does, the scenes jump to where he awakens and we awaken with him. The idea works to perfection. It is not until later, when Evan returns to the past to alter these events that the audience along with him has the gaps filled in. As Evan tries to change the past, he finds that as awful as these events in his past may have been, the results of changing them can be worse.
I was about as far from being an Ashton Kutcher fan as one could be before seeing this film. I had only seen snippets of That 70's show and wasn't impressed. I had witnessed just enough of Punk'd to become annoyed with it. And although there were a very few good comedic moments in Just Married the film itself was less than run-of-the-mill. In The Butterfly Effect, Kutcher will have many taking another look at his acting ability. In playing Evan Treborn, Kutcher had a difficult task that required great changes in his character when he returns from his journey to the past. He hits all the right notes, never overplays the part, and seems to have lost his Punk'd persona completely. It will cause many to give him another look.
Amy Smart as his girlfriend Kayleigh Miller is just as good if not better. Her role was the most difficult of all as it is Kayleigh who undergoes the most drastic changes as Evan wanders through time. Kudos also to Eldon Henson and William Lee Scott. I've never seen a film where so much change in character was required and the actors were able to make it all believable. They deserve great praise. Eric Stoltz as an alcoholic pedophile takes a difficult role also and gives it the kind of creepy smugness that will run shivers down your spine. The child actors used to portray the young version of the characters are equally terrific. This is great praise indeed coming from myself, as I can be quite the curmudgeon when it comes to child actors.
After having viewed The Butterfly Effect, I went back and read some of the negative reviews, not only on IMDB but others as well. What I found in many of these reviews, was that it seemed some critics did let preconceived notions influence them. Yet even in their negativity begrudgingly gave the film some respect. In one review, a critic spent the first half of the review as if trying to find the bad, yet spent their last three paragraphs writing as if the film deserved praise. In the other reviews, some critics spent several paragraphs trying to find pithy phrases to degrade the Ashton Kutcher persona giving little mention of the film itself. Shame on them, but congratulations to those IMDB voters who saw through the nonsense and graded the film on it's rightful merits.
Driving home from the theater I thought about my own past. I wondered if I were to go back and change certain events how it would affect not only me but those around me and those I have known. When a film can make you do that, it's a big success in my book.
My Grade B+