it's a wonderful life in reverse

Rating: 3/10 (31 August 2004)

OK, it's impossible to discuss this film without spoiling it so be warned that this review will contain spoilers to the "big twist" at the end. You are hereby warned. (note that I have only seen the director's cut which has a different ending. i don't know what the theatrical ending is)
I hated this film. Not in the sense that it was bad like Battlefield Earth or something. I hated what the film had to say. Sure films are entertainment, maybe even art, and the ride is to be enjoyed as much as the resolution, but a writer is also saying something. S/he is making a statement about life. and the writer of Butterfly Effect is making a sick, nihilistic statement that I can't at all find entertaining.
This is a film about unfortunate, messed up kids. They are both victims o bad lives as well as victims of their own poor choices. After an interminable first hour in which nothing resembling "plot" happens (instead, all the miserable childhood events that are to be changed must fist be laid out) min character Evan learns he can go back to certain moments of his youth and change things, thus creating a whole new reality for him and his friends (although the world at large is safely unaffected).
The exact mechanism of his temporal journeys is unclear. He returns to moments when originally he had "blacked out." Whether he blacked out because at some point in the future he went back to those moments or that he simply could only travel to his blackout moments is never stated. Nor is it stated, although it seems to be implied, that he can only visit each black out once. Mess it up the second time and oh well, time to move on.
Of course, each time back he attempts to improve things (preventing his would-be girlfriend's dad from making them star in kiddie porn; warning a mother with a baby about a firecracker he & his friends just put in her mailbox) he fixes the original problem but creates all new ones. Eventually, he decides the problem is *him*, his own existence, so he goes back to (presumably) a black out he had in utero and kills himself before he is born thus providing his friends with a happy life.
What is the writer saying here? First and foremost the message is "the world is a better place without you" While this might apply to a Hitler or Ted Bundy it seems rather harsh for basically nice-guy Evan who hardly brought about the harsh problems of his childhood. If anyone in the film deserved to not exist it was the girl's sick father. Take him out of the equation and none of this happens either. To me, this is nihilism at its worst. It doesn't value human life. it values its lack. as a final message for what was already a downer film it left a sick taste in my mouth as the credits were rolling.
Now, if one looks at the idea that the writer's original name for Evan Treborn was Chris (Christ reborn, get it?) then the message becomes one of self sacrifice - that a good man must die for the betterment of others. The problem here is that his 'sacrifice' goes completely unknown. No one will ever learn of his 'noble sacrifice' (a sacrifice made for the primary reason of negating a stupidly bad decision made by the girlfriend, not to undo any action of his own). Still, the point seems to be not existing makes other's lives better.
There can be some debate on this issue though as early in the film, Evan's mom informs him of her two previous stillbirths, but after he kills himself (become stillbirth #3) during the visual sequence showing the 'improved' reality' we hear his mother's voice repeat those lines but this time saying she had 3 previous still births, not 2. who is she speaking to? is the cycle repeating? This point is unclear.
Over all, this is a movie worth skipping. It's not entertaining nor does it offer any kind of worthy message for your 120 minute investment.