Intriguing story, well executed and acted ... but not for the faint-of-heart

Rating: 8/10 (16 February 2004)

Chaos theory states that something seemingly inconsequential - such as a butterfly flapping its wings - can cause a hurricane on the other side of the globe. In other words: something very small can have enormous consequences.
"The Butterfly Effect" explores this concept to present vastly different scenarios, caused by changed "parameters" earlier on in a chain of events, and does so over and over again. Maybe you could call it a nightmarish version of "Groundhog Day" ...
The movie kept my interest until the very end, and when it was over, I did not feel cheated. In my experience, a lot of movies these days start out promising, build up towards a climax and keep the audience's interest for a long time ... only to ultimately disappoint in the end. Not this one, at least not for me.
What caught me completely off guard in this movie was the intense violence, and I am not talking about the usual "blow people up and scatter bloody body parts all over the place" kind of violence. Here, the scariest scenes go to really young kids doing really cruel and mean things. I have to give some serious credit to the child actors who played those scences utterly convincingly, and to the folks who picked those child actors, as well.
Thankfully, the movie doesn't exploit the display of "mean kids" doing "cruel things" for cheap shock effects, but rather presents those actions as consequences of child abuse in a very graphic fashion.
And if you're curious about how well Ashton Kutcher did in his first dramatic role: I think, he did great, and the same goes for the rest of the "adult" cast, as well.