Surprisingly worth the trouble (spoilers)

Rating: 7/10 (12 July 2004)

This film requires a leap of faith by the audience, but it's worth the trouble. The reward is an absorbing story, involving characters we can care about.
It's not worth going into the illogic and paradoxes in time travel movies. Such considerations hang over all time travel movies, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be made.
A big surprise here is the quality of Ashton Kutcher's performance. I found him convincing and not unmoving as Evan, a man who finds that by revisiting the memories recorded in his journals, he can change the events they recall (and even ones they don't). It probably helps that Kutcher is surrounded by a competent group of actors who flesh out their own characters, and the story, admirably.
The script is a bit, er, frank at times and some scenes are rather gory. I didn't find these overdone, however. The special effects are adequate rather than inspired, and the music is negligible.
But you watch films like this for the story, and that works. The result is a satisfying, but not great, movie experience.
Rating: 7/10.