The Butterfly Effect

I have very mixed feelings about The Butterfly Effect, I love the concept, i think loads of things about the film work but its also got a few objectively ridiculous and somewhat mediocre aspects. I think i give this movie a lot of slack for two reasons, the first being that i have a lot of nostalgia for it as i watched it loads as a teenager and the second, that I am a sucker for a cool concept and The Butterfly Effect if nothing else has a great concept. But it is in the execution of that concept where it falters a little.

As I'm sure you're aware the story behind the film is that Ashton Kutcher's character discovers that he has the ability to traverse time to earlier periods in his life through reading entries in his journals, He then seeks to fix the traumatic events which shaped not only his life but the life of the woman he loves.

Right off the bat the film deals with some extremely heavy themes, it is a bleak , dark movie which roots itself in childhood sexual abuse and the unearthing of these repressed memories in adulthood, I think it does a good job of presenting this subject most of the time. But there are too many moments where I was left thinking, come on now, that's ridiculous, and they are all to do with Jesse James's portrayal of the damaged and borderline psychopathic child version of the character Tommy. The primary antagonist of the movie.

Whoever chose that kid to be cast in the role had no idea what they were doing. For example, he is a thirteen year old scrawny boy who is in one scene able to beat the ever loving piss out of what looks to be an eighteen year old. It is ridiculous. Every time he does something like that it pulls me out of the movie. Jesse James was a terrible child actor, i hated him but not always for the reasons the film wanted me to. Look, you might think I'm being a bit harsh but child actors can make or break a film and it is an objectively poor performance.

The only other negatives are that the film gets a bit over the top in its edge-lordy bleakness, which works when you're a teenager but now as an adult some scenes just come off funny. For example when Kutcher enters a reality where he becomes a paraplegic and his best friend is now with his girlfriend and he gets so frustrated he tries to crawl out of his wheelchair only to fall flat on his face while a group of teens laugh at him. It's all a bit silly but hey, at least it is original. However I think there are darker and more interesting ways to show how changing the past can alter the future, without making the end result a bit cheesy and funny in parts.

All that said i don't want you to get the idea that i don't like the film, I kind of do, I like how far it goes, I like the central story, I buy completely into Kutcher's relationship with Amy Smart. I think its fun in an odd twilight-zone sort of way, but i don't think its a good film, at least not completely, it has too many plot inconsistencies , laughable moments and inconsistencies with its lore that it cannot be by any stretch of the imagination considered to be a "good" film, but it is an entertaining one that's for sure.

So, onto the ending, of which there are four, no seriously, there are four variations and different cuts of this movie, which is kind of fitting i suppose given the subject matter. Tonight I decided to watch the directors cut and i have to say, the theatrical version is miles better. This one is needlessly grim and sends a very negative message about suicide when you dig into it a bit, i don't think they intended for it to be taken that way but that is the message it sends regardless.

Overall its a fun but flawed film
that with a bit of work could have been a lot better.