Name a movie that you like much more than you should. I could rattle off dozens, and right at the top of that list might be the incredibly flawed yet thoroughly engrossing The Butterfly Effect, the supernatural thriller co-directed by J Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress. This movie gets better with each viewing, but it still gets the job done. I watch it every four or five years. It captivates me each time, though I pick it apart more. It’s not a criticism but rather an observation. This is a movie that I admire. I enjoy its dark themes.
Known primarily for his role in the television sitcom That ’70s Show, Ashton Kutcher (Dude, Where’s My Car?, Just Married) proved he had the acting chops to excel in a film outside the comedy genre. I was thoroughly impressed by what he brought to the screen in a suspense/drama. I’ll be the first to say that I didn’t think he had this kind of performance in him. Since 2004, and before writing this review in 2023, he’s mostly followed a successful romantic comedy blueprint. A couple of exceptions (The Guardian, Jobs) have allowed him to shine outside of that genre, but they have been few and far between, especially when it comes to a leading role. One commonality with Kutcher’s films is that they score much higher with audiences than critics. Sometimes, the scores are absurdly higher. The Butterfly Effect was no exception.
The film focuses on the lives of four childhood friends who are now young adults. Evan (Kutcher) is a college student majoring in psychology. Through flashbacks, we learn that Evan, Kayleigh (Amy Smart – Just Friends, Road Trip), Tommy (William Lee Scott – Identity, Pearl Harbor), and Lenny (Elden Henson – She’s All That, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1) have each had some mutual trauma that has impacted who they are today. While things have turned out (mostly) okay for Evan, the same can’t be said for the others. We also learn that Evan has long suffered from blackouts and that he keeps a journal, something that a psychiatrist suggested when he was a young boy.
The movie opens with a title that introduces chaos theory, in which a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia could cause a hurricane on the other side of the globe. The film plays on the theory that any single change could alter the world. When present-day Evan learns he can travel back in time (by reading a page in one of his journals about a particular event), he envisions all the good he could do by changing a catastrophic event that derailed his friends’ lives. Interesting premise, no? However, as you would imagine in a psychological drama, things don’t necessarily go to plan. In changing that singular event, every event since then has also been altered. When Evan returns to the present, it isn’t the same one he departed from. His actions in the past have changed everything that has happened since, including, at times, whether he even went to college. So he tries to go back and change things again to get it perfect. The cycle repeats and repeats. The more he tries to fix things, the messier things become.
Time travel is always an exciting movie concept. Because it is impossible to do, the only real limitations are creativity… and believability. The Butterfly Effect is plenty creative. You need to suspend your belief if you will enjoy the film. For example, these changes Evan makes when traveling to the past will have affected more than just his friends and family. Those changes will have affected the entire world. But we don’t see that lens. It’s not a criticism. It’s the approach that Gruber and Gess went with. But it forces you to accept some things while suspending belief in others. That can be hard for some and could be the main reason why The Butterfly Effect has such a drastic difference between critics’ and audience scores. It could also be why I like it slightly less with each viewing. I still really like it, but I understand that the directing style is meant to make us feel for these characters as we see them in various present-day states, based on whatever change Evan made.
The Butterfly Effect has three alternate endings. A few years ago, I watched all three after a recent viewing. Gruber and Gess picked the correct one to end with. For all its flaws, the film was diligent in its storytelling. It also maintained an eerie vibe and kept you guessing how it would end. We knew from the start that this movie wasn’t going to give us the same happy-go-lucky vibe of a film like Groundhog Day. It was more a question of ‘how dark is this going to get’ before we reach the finish line.
Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 8/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 8/10
Screenplay 7.5/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 7/10
80%
B
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