The Butterfly Effect - 0*
Now Playing: (2004, Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber) [seen in theatre]
Knew I was in for a loooooooooong slog when the first reel or so of the film contained the following events- a kid brandishing a butcher knife, a group of kids blowing up a woman and her baby, a dog getting set on fire, and a father making dirty home movies of kids. While I'm not such a bleeding-heart that I'd call this movie reprehensible for portraying these events, it's certainly pretty shameless. These scenes provide a clue to the direction the movie is going to take once the plot gimmick kicks in, and this one's a doozy. To wit- one of the kids experienced blackouts during the traumatic events of his childhood, and when he's grown up he finds that he can use his old journals to place himself back at these events and even change the outcome. Talk about your suspension of disbelief- this premise is unlikely enough as it is without an actor as untalented as Ashton Kutcher attempting to anchor it in some kind of reality. He tries really hard to be all dramatic and poignant in this movie, and oh man does he ever fail. The only time he seems even remotely at home is when he gets to be a frat boy, which for his purposes isn't nearly long enough. Most of the time he tries to come across as an introverted, damaged guy, and he's almost laughably unconvincing (Amy Smart fares somewhat better as the primary beneficiary of the changes, and Melora Walters, pro that she is, does what she can to make her character- Ashton's mom- convincing). But while he doesn't do the movie any favors, it's a howler for other reasons. It's pretty clear the filmmakers are of the nurture school of personality, since the outcome of these events bears so strongly on the fates of the principal characters, but I think that turning the little psycho into a Jesus freak after one of the traumatic events is averted is a stretch even by this movie's standards. I also find it laughable that while the filmmakers copiously apply the titular chaos-theory chestnut vertically (in that the lives of the four main characters are profoundly affected by changes to their pasts), they don't really explore the possibility of applying it horizontally, by showing the changes to others around them. Even when something has changed drastically, no one but the principals has been touched by it. Plus the fact that Ashton Kutcher can remember his past as it happened before he changed it, in spite of the fact that since he changed it the "previous" past didn't actually happen all, is pretty fishy to me. Not to mention that the movie at one point has Ashton going back to an traumatic event pre-dating one of the ones he revisits later in the story, completely overlooking the strong possibility that, since he already changed the earlier event, the chronologically later one most likely didn't happen at all. Honestly, this movie's pretty lame, and while it still might have been at least unintentionally funny had the filmmakers taken it over the top, they don't even have the good sense to do that here. I would've certainly welcomed a plot development wherein Melora Walters decided it was OK to throw teenage Ashton's journals away so that when he grew up he'd have to learn to deal with his tough past just like everyone else. I mean cope with it you big baby.