Dave2112
Level of Cherry Feather
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This past weekend, it was a toss-up between seeing The Butterfly Effect and Big Fish. I settled on the previous and was treated to a surprisingly good film.
In a nutshell, the story follows a young man, Evan, (That 70's Show's Ashton Kutcher) who has lived his life with blackouts and bouts of memory loss. Once in college, he finds that he, like his absent father before him, can go back to moments in his life by reading from his "life journal" out loud.
In trying to change one thing that seriously affected his life, he winds up setting a chain of events in motion that makes the world better for himself at first, but ultimately leads to tragedy as unforseen consequences arise...the "Butterfly Effect" coined by the architects of Chaos Theory. (A butterfly flapping its wings can start a monsoon halfway around the world)
Again and again, he tries to right these things by going to various points in his life, always with someone dying as a result. His past centers around an incident that took place when he, a neigborhood friend and a brother/sister set of friends pull a prank that goes horribly wrong, but winds up blocked from his mind.
There is little more I can say about the plot without giving away vital secrets and story points, so I'll get to why you should see this film.
First off, Ashton Kutcher's performance was much better than I would have thought. This is a young actor with a lot of potential talent who needed to do a movie like this before becoming the David Spade of this generation...doing only idiot roles. With previous films like "Just Married", where he played nothing more than a big-screen version of Micheal Kelso, and the completely unwatchable "Dude, Where's My Car?" Kutcher was in danger of being pigeonholed as a comic actor only. Even gifted actors like Bill Murray, Steve Martin and Robin Williams get little recognition for thier dramatic roles because of decades of work in slapstick. Kutcher shows a wide range of acting skills that may someday translate into bigger and better films.
The film centers mostly around Kutcher and his three friends. Kayleigh, the love interest, is played by Amy Smart (who was great in Rat Race). Smart's performance stole a few of the scenes, as she needed to play a wide variety of versions of herself...from a sorority queen to a horribly scarred prostitute.
Her brother, Tommy, wasn't as big a part as an adult as he was a child. All of the main actors had two others portraying thier characters in earlier life, and the 13-year-old version of Tommy was wonderfully portrayed by Jesse James. This is one seriously messed up kid, worse than any neighborhood bully you can remember. The young James is chillingly effective, something rare in child actors. Not since The Omen has a young boy been so frightening.
Some form of comic relief is provided by Ethan Suplee as Thumper, Evan's 400 lb. Goth roommate. If nothing else, Thumper proves that you don't have to be an underwear model to score some really hot chicks.
One of two things that bothered me a bit about The Butterfly Effect was the lack of explanation as to how or even why Evan is able to travel back in time. In fact, some in the audience I saw this with weren't sure if the blackouts had anything to do with his ability. The point is that he had blackouts as a child because those were the times that his future self would come back and supplant his consciousness into his younger self...trying to find the reason for the blackouts. Get it? Well, we've all been through the temporal paradox wringer with time-travel films before...and at least this one isn't as convoluted as some. In fact, if not for the closing scenes, you could even be led to believe that Evan never traveled in time at all, but was imagining it all from inside a damaged mind.
The other thing that bugged me a bit was the performance of Eric Stoltz as Kayleigh and Tommy's creepy, alcoholic pedophile father. Not that it wasn't a good character, but as a fan of Eric Stoltz, it seemed that he was there to pick up a paycheck. I've seen some fantastic performances by Stoltz over the years (check out Rob Roy), but he really didn't put his ass into this one.
All in all, I really enjoyed this film and considered it 8 bucks well spent. It's not going to win any Academy Awards, but it's a surprisingly good vehicle for Ashton Kutcher. Not as great as it could have been, but far better than I would have expected. It does raise the moral question of changing the past if you could...should you? Who knows what tiny change could ultimatley wind up affecting the outcome of the entire world, hence the title. It led to some involved discussion between myself and several of the folks I saw it with, and if a movie can do that, it has at least accomplished something.
I give The Butterfly effect 3 1/2 stars out of 5. 😎
In a nutshell, the story follows a young man, Evan, (That 70's Show's Ashton Kutcher) who has lived his life with blackouts and bouts of memory loss. Once in college, he finds that he, like his absent father before him, can go back to moments in his life by reading from his "life journal" out loud.
In trying to change one thing that seriously affected his life, he winds up setting a chain of events in motion that makes the world better for himself at first, but ultimately leads to tragedy as unforseen consequences arise...the "Butterfly Effect" coined by the architects of Chaos Theory. (A butterfly flapping its wings can start a monsoon halfway around the world)
Again and again, he tries to right these things by going to various points in his life, always with someone dying as a result. His past centers around an incident that took place when he, a neigborhood friend and a brother/sister set of friends pull a prank that goes horribly wrong, but winds up blocked from his mind.
There is little more I can say about the plot without giving away vital secrets and story points, so I'll get to why you should see this film.
First off, Ashton Kutcher's performance was much better than I would have thought. This is a young actor with a lot of potential talent who needed to do a movie like this before becoming the David Spade of this generation...doing only idiot roles. With previous films like "Just Married", where he played nothing more than a big-screen version of Micheal Kelso, and the completely unwatchable "Dude, Where's My Car?" Kutcher was in danger of being pigeonholed as a comic actor only. Even gifted actors like Bill Murray, Steve Martin and Robin Williams get little recognition for thier dramatic roles because of decades of work in slapstick. Kutcher shows a wide range of acting skills that may someday translate into bigger and better films.
The film centers mostly around Kutcher and his three friends. Kayleigh, the love interest, is played by Amy Smart (who was great in Rat Race). Smart's performance stole a few of the scenes, as she needed to play a wide variety of versions of herself...from a sorority queen to a horribly scarred prostitute.
Her brother, Tommy, wasn't as big a part as an adult as he was a child. All of the main actors had two others portraying thier characters in earlier life, and the 13-year-old version of Tommy was wonderfully portrayed by Jesse James. This is one seriously messed up kid, worse than any neighborhood bully you can remember. The young James is chillingly effective, something rare in child actors. Not since The Omen has a young boy been so frightening.
Some form of comic relief is provided by Ethan Suplee as Thumper, Evan's 400 lb. Goth roommate. If nothing else, Thumper proves that you don't have to be an underwear model to score some really hot chicks.
One of two things that bothered me a bit about The Butterfly Effect was the lack of explanation as to how or even why Evan is able to travel back in time. In fact, some in the audience I saw this with weren't sure if the blackouts had anything to do with his ability. The point is that he had blackouts as a child because those were the times that his future self would come back and supplant his consciousness into his younger self...trying to find the reason for the blackouts. Get it? Well, we've all been through the temporal paradox wringer with time-travel films before...and at least this one isn't as convoluted as some. In fact, if not for the closing scenes, you could even be led to believe that Evan never traveled in time at all, but was imagining it all from inside a damaged mind.
The other thing that bugged me a bit was the performance of Eric Stoltz as Kayleigh and Tommy's creepy, alcoholic pedophile father. Not that it wasn't a good character, but as a fan of Eric Stoltz, it seemed that he was there to pick up a paycheck. I've seen some fantastic performances by Stoltz over the years (check out Rob Roy), but he really didn't put his ass into this one.
All in all, I really enjoyed this film and considered it 8 bucks well spent. It's not going to win any Academy Awards, but it's a surprisingly good vehicle for Ashton Kutcher. Not as great as it could have been, but far better than I would have expected. It does raise the moral question of changing the past if you could...should you? Who knows what tiny change could ultimatley wind up affecting the outcome of the entire world, hence the title. It led to some involved discussion between myself and several of the folks I saw it with, and if a movie can do that, it has at least accomplished something.
I give The Butterfly effect 3 1/2 stars out of 5. 😎
