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THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
by Peter Sobczynski

January 23, 2004

1/2 (out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eldon Henson, Eric Stoltz, Ethan Suplee. Directed by: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber. Produced by: J.C. Spink, Chris Bender, A.J. Dix, Anthony Rhulen. MPAA Rating: R for violence, sexual content, language and brief drug use. Distributor: New Line Cinema

Movie studios spend millions and millions of dollars in publicity and marketing costs in an attempt to attract moviegoers, yet there are times when their efforts have the exact opposite effect and they actually manage to drive away the potential audiences. Take the commercials currently running for "The Butterfly Effect", which only highlight the presence of pretty-boy icon Ashton Kutcher and make the film look like just another cheesy horror film. In other words, it makes the film look like a piece of assembly-line crap dumped in the January dead zone that no one with taste would be caught dead seeing. If it were a bad film, I could understand why New Line would take such a half-hearted attempt but the truth of the matter is that "The Butterfly Effect" is anything but a bad film-in fact, it is a highly impressive, wildly ambitious and decidedly dark fantasy that approximates what might have occurred if David Lynch, Carlos Castenada and Donnie Darko got together to create a perverse spin on "It’s a Wonderful Life". I was actually a little blind-sided by how good it was-and I suspect there are a lot of people out there who would feel the same way if they could bring themselves to see it in spite of the ads.

This is the kind of film where it is probably best to go in knowing as little as possible so while I will try to keep the plot details to a minimum, those interested in seeing it should probably tread lightly. Kutcher stars as Evan Treborn, a college student whose loner demeanor is the result of a series of devastatingly brutal events he endured as a child. As a result, the young Evan suffered from a series of traumatic blackouts in which he would have no memory of anything that occurred. In an attempt to cure him, a psychiatrist suggest that he keep a detailed journal in the hopes that it would allow him to jog his memory. One day, the now-grown Evan stumbles upon his old journals and reads a passage of a particularly disturbing event that involved him, childhood friend Kayleigh, her pervert father (Eric Stoltz) and a video camera. Jolted by this memory, he returns to his old hometown and looks up Kayleigh (Amy Smart) and asks her what she remembers. The emotionally scarred Kayleigh tears into him for reopening old wounds and kills herself later that night.

The devastated Evan soon discovers that by reading certain passages in his journal, he can somehow travel back into time to that particular event. Evan goes back to the video-camera incident and, in the body of his younger self, changes things around. Instantly, he returns back to the future where he is now the big man on campus, Kayleigh is now his staggeringly well-adjusted girlfriend and all is peachy king. However, as we all learned from that "Simpsons" episode with Homer and the time-machine toaster, you can’t change the past without causing future repercussions-a lesson that Evan soon learns the hard way.

More than that, I will not say, except to mention that "The Butterfly Effect" takes what could have been a one-joke premise (a guy repeatedly going back in time to change one thing, only to unwittingly screw up something else) and comes up with a lot of impressive riffs on familiar material. There are, for example, a couple of other characters-including Kayleigh’s psychotic brother (played at various times by William Lee Scott, Cameron Crigger and, in his most malevolent incarnation, Jesse James) and fellow pal Lenny (Elden Henson and Kevin Schmidt)-who find their lives changing drastically because of Evan’s changes. We also meet Evan’s father, who was institutionalized for his violent temper and who claimed that he could travel through time. There is an explanation for why Evan seemed to black out during key moments of his childhood. And like "12 Monkeys", a film which "The Butterfly Effect" share some similarities, there is also the possibility that the fantastic events that we are seeing are nothing more than the product of a deeply disturbed mind.

"The Butterfly Effect" was written and directed by Eric Bress & J. Mackey Gruber, whose previous credit was the screenplay for the foul and unnecessary "Final Destination 2" but their work here is as smart and assured as their earlier effort was stupid and clumsy. One of the reasons that time-travel movies rarely work is that they get so caught up in the mechanics of trying to explain such an impossibility (after all, if time-travel were possible, I would be filthy rich and holed up in a luxury apartment with Uma Thurman and the girl from the Black-Eyed Peas instead of earning a meager living sitting through the likes of "Torque") that the story usually winds up bogging down. And while there are a couple of plot holes in "The Butterfly Effect (If Evan is changing the events of the past, for example, wouldn’t his diaries reflect those changes as well?), the filmmakers keep thing going with enough internal logic that viewers hardly notice when things don’t quite add up. I also enjoyed some of the subtle visual flourishes that the duo employ to suggest the different timelines in their increasingly complex narrative.

The biggest surprise that Bress & Gruber come up with is that they manage to get a genuinely interesting and subtle performance out of Ashton Kutcher, who, to date, has basically played nothing but slight variations on the mimbo character from "That 70’s Show". Here, however, he is playing a role that requires restraint and nuance if it is to work (and if the performance doesn’t work, neither does the movie) and he shows that he is up to the challenge. Although he seems to be cultivating his image as a professional goofball (including showing up for the film’s premiere at Sundance inexplicably dressed in a cowboy outfit), his performance shows that when properly motivated, he actually possesses some serious acting chops.

Of course, his mere presence in "The Butterfly Effect" is probably enough to put off some viewers and some of the dark, brutal imagery (as shocking and depraved as anything previously seen in a mainstream film) will probably put off many others. However, people who skip the film for those reasons, not to mention the aforementioned ads (though, to be fair, this is a film that resists the kind of simple reduction required to make a 30-second spot) are going to miss a lot of good things. The truly terrifying work by Jesse James as the nightmare bully of all time. The equally impressive work by Amy Smart in a role just as tricky as Kutcher’s. Some genuinely startling shocks and other moments of black humor. And the final scene, which somehow manages to avoid the pitfalls of the time-travel genre while coming up with a denouement that is touching, heartbreaking and strangely satisfying all at the same time.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.