I’m going to say something now that will be the deciding factor for some of you about whether or not you want to see THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT. Its star, Ashton Kutcher, spends an extended sequence barely wearing a towel, his taut, toned, and ripped physique on display for the multitudes. For the rest of you, the ones who are still reading and not bolting to the nearest multiplex to view Mr. Kutcher in the almost altogether, sit back, relax, and learn about the cheesy flick that you’ve spared yourself.
Kutcher plays Evan, a comely college kid who has discovered a most unusual ability. When he reads over his childhood journals, specifically the parts where he had one of his many memory blackouts, he can inject himself into his own past at the very moment in time that he doesn’t remember. Not physically, but as the kid he was then, only this time clued into the events, usually nasty, that are about to take place. He decides to use this talent fix the past and make the present perfect. Every time he does, of course, the past changes and so does the present, but not in the way he had hoped. Sometimes it’s just a scar that wasn’t there before, and sometimes it’s mayhem, murder, and madness. No surprise. A troubled childhood it was, replete with crazy fathers, pedophilia, murdered pets, and dynamite. Then there’s Mom, who does things like take Evan for a visit with his father in the asylum, so convenient when Dad leaps across the table and wraps his manacled hands around little Evan’s neck. Or that she takes Evan to a playdate after finding him holding a very big knife right after drawing a picture of a man killing people with a very similar-looking very big knife. The fact that the father (a wasted Eric Stoltz) of the kids he’s visiting likes to make kiddie-porn videos notwithstanding.
It’s not a bad premise and one that’s been explored many times, including a particularly piquant segment of a Simpson’s Tree House of Terror episode. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, alas, is not in that league, and though there are some laughs, few of them are intentional.
Evan’s quest is to make the world he lives in perfect. How ironic that the theme of perfection lurks in a film that is anything but. The lapses of logic are a problem. In one of Evan’s altered realities, his car’s been demolished by his true love’s brother, who is still at large. So naturally the lovebirds wander around in the dark so that bro can, and of course does, take a baseball bat to Evan. It might be an example of how Darwinism thins the herd, but it’s not a good script move when our boy is supposed to be bright. And here we have the other problem. Mr. Kutcher is a lovely man, and, as a working actor, he is to be expected to attempt to stretch himself beyond the confines of his sitcom stardom. What we have learned from this voyage of discovery is that currently the rigors of sitcom humor are as far as he can stretch. When called upon to exhibit emotional angst, he seems to be suffering the ill effects of consuming an overripe burrito with predictable results. His delivery when showing tender concern is like the set up for a punch line that will never arrive. Dialogue that shows less imagination than the worms one of his incarnations keeps as pets only exacerbates the situation. As for the permutations of reality, they are standard issue as each of his pals move up or down the food chain of happiness and/or sanity. Amy Smart fares better as Evan’s true love, doing a nice job of morphing from slag to sophisticate and even managing to keep a straight face as Mr. Kutcher attempts to pitch woo. The no-so-special effects, when the world goes all wavy and whooshy as Evan revisits his past are equally laughable.
No abs, no matter how yummy, are worth sitting through THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, though obviously its makers are counting on some part of the public at large confusing Mr. Kutcher’s fine physique with fine filmmaking. It’s not just cynical, it’s insulting.
Your Thoughts?