Director: J. Mackeye Gruber, Eric Bress
Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz, William Lee Scott, Elden Henson, Logan Lerman, Ethan Suplee, Melora Walters
Screenplay: J. Mackeye Gruber, Eric Bress
113 mins. Rated R for violence, sexual content, language and brief drug use.

Sometimes it’s better not to rewatch movies you loved as a young person. Case in point: The Butterfly Effect, a film I was blown away by as a teenager all those years ago. Rewatching the film for the first time in at least a decade has definitely opened my eyes to some of its…less polished elements, but I will maintain that it’s an ambitious film with a pretty damn good hook that just could’ve used some more time in the oven.

Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher, No Strings Attached) is a gifted boy who has spent his whole life suffering tragedy after tragedy. Plagued with blackouts since childhood, Evan’s kept detailed journals in an effort to access the time lost, but now he’s discovered that he can focus on the blackouts in order to time travel to them and change the trajectory of his life. In doing so, he learns that the small changes he makes can have major repercussions for his future, but can he find a future to fix it all?

I’d never really seen a movie like The Butterfly Effect at the time of its release, though I’d been aware of the central idea after reading Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder, which had discussed elements like the titular notion of changing the future with small adjustments in the past. I recall seeing these interesting and complex ideas in a major release film being very enticing, and I remember finding the story so well-executed. Well, I don’t feel that way anymore. That being said, I like the general concept and how it’s utilized, with blackouts marking the places Evan can travel to, like tethers in time. This avoids some of the unnecessary overpowering of the main character because he has limited options, and it also lessens the amount of heavy backstory needed, which already weighs down most of the first act.

I also respect the hell out of a major release by a studio going to some of the dark places this one is willing to tackle, including childhood sexual assault and the graphic deaths of children and animals. It’s not as successful as it’s aiming to be, but it’s going to ambitiously dark ideas in an effort to show how important it would be to go back and fix one’s past. In Evan’s place, I can see from the events in the film why he’s so hellbent on saving his friends.

Sadly, I just don’t think Kutcher is successfully carrying this narrative. He has moments of intense realization and development, but the screenplay he’s working features some truly rough dialogue and he’s not able to do much with it. I believe Kutcher can do well with the right script and a director who can pull greatness from him, but the directing duo of Gruber and Bress aren’t able to do enough with either. Some of the dialogue in this movie is unpleasant and unrealistic, dare I say cringe-inducing, and even the movie rules that are established in their screenplay are occasionally inconsistent within the story, though you could chalk that up to the characters themselves not understanding the rules and making assumptions about them.

If there’s a standout performance in The Butterfy Effect, it is absolutely Melora Walters (Venom) as Evan’s mother, featured mostly in flashback but carrying more gravitas that the script would let you believe. There’s a love behind her eyes for her son, and a confusion over what’s happening to him, and a wanting to make the hard choices to keep him safe. It’s a great performance stuck in the middle of a middling film.

Depending on which cut of the film you saw, there were two main endings (God bless Infinifilm for all those amazing special features). I remember thinking that the director’s cut was ballsy and powerful, but I watched the two endings with this film, and I’m starting to lean for the theatrical cut as the director’s version continues the trend of breaking its own rules, presumably. I think the theatrical ending, while very convenient for a film that doesn’t offer that anywhere else, is at least more in line with the Evan character and his journey.

If I were offered the chance to remake any film in existence, I have to assume that The Butterfly Effect would be on my list of intriguing possibilities. It’s a great structure and concept, though executed rather poorly, but I think this idea deserves another take (not including the two sequels, or course). The film we got here, though, is unfortunately just not as good as that concept should afford.

2/5
-Kyle A. Goethe