THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT (2004) Bet he wishes he could make Punk'd never happen I know, it stars Ashton Kutcher. And for sure, there are times when one can't help but think "Kelso!" while watching this - that fruitcakey run down hospital hallways, his laughably pathetic pleading to a doctor for some journals. Some actors never outrun the dumbass TV sitcom characters that made them famous. Richard Moll never did, Woody Harrelson looked like he was going to but ultimately never did, and when's the last time you saw Ralph Malph? Any chance he has of gaining some recognition as having a brain, he blew with Punk'd. I'm sure he's a perfectly intelligent person, but being the mastermind of idiocy will not impress the people who primarily identify him as Kelso, or the Dude, Where's My Car? guy. The Butterfly Effect is a story of regret, ruminating on mistakes, and all the ways we look back on past pooch-screws with the ever-expanding understanding of all we could've done to lessen the damage. It stars people in their twenties and is obviously aimed at students, people who generally haven't had a lot of time to rack up many mistakes in their lives. Those of us who've screwed that pooch a lot are likely to find a lot more resonance in it than those who've managed to steer their lives according to plan. Kutcher stars as Evan, who we first see breaking into a doctor's office in what appears to be a low-security mental institution. It's a needless set-up scene which gives away too much of what goes on later (hey, he has arms!) and supplies us with no useful information that isn't perfectly well conveyed with the next, uh, half hour or so. One can only guess it was included only so Kutcher could put in an appearance to appease the segment of twits in the audience who would say "Dude, like...where's Kelso?" After that unnecessary intro, we go back to Evan's childhood, first at age seven and later at age thirteen as we learn two important things about him: he sometimes has blackouts (especially during times of severe emotional trauma), and...uh, he has times of severe emotional trauma. His mother (Melora Walters) encourages him at age seven to keep a journal to minimize his blackouts (the first of which happens when he's babysat by super-creepy neighbor Eric Stoltz, playing WAY against type), and they subside until age thirteen when two more terrible things happen. Then they go away again until he's in college, and played by Kutcher again. He accidentally finds out that by re-reading his old journals, he can experience his old life so vividly that he seems to be living it...and when he awakens from this fugue, he finds things are very, very slightly different. His investigation into this sets off a disaster, and he attempts to correct it with his re-construction of reality by altering the past. It mostly centers upon three childhood friends - two abused siblings (kids of the Stoltz character) and the chubby kid who serves as the Milhouse of the group - but a few others are also affected, like the Evan's parents and his college roommate (Ethan Semple), an obese goth guy. Stories of people who acquire awesome powers either involve Great Responsibility, or A Terrible Price. The Butterfly Effect is a bit of both, but mostly the latter kind. Evan tries to unselfishly correct the awful events of the past, but every time it results in disaster on some level; people end up as prisoners and amputees and mental patients and frat boys and crack whores (seriously, crack whores!). The larger world around them doesn't appear to be affected by all these changes, though it's unlikely any of them would have had the chance to leave a very big footprint. Friends become lovers or enemies, enemies become friends or disappear entirely, and nothing ever seems to ultimately turn out better than last time. Sort of a sci-fi twist on the old crime-story hook that someone has to keep committing more crimes to cover up loose ends on the original crime, The Butterfly Effect makes Evan keep having to re-repair the past to fix all the things that went wrong the last time. The weakest segment is probably one where Evan lands himself in prison; I liked the merciless, conscience-less violence that led to his incarceration (not something a lot of otherwise peaceful movie heroes are allowed to indulge themselves in), but once he's in there he gets pretty much the best cellmate ever. Evan and wins him over with a time-twist that probably shouldn't work (the movie takes care to lay down the rules about Evan's changed memories, but the scars on his hands would have been there since he arrived, not suddenly appearing once he flashes back to the present). Also, the logic by which that first half hour shows us his childhood alternately as "corrected" and "uncorrected" - no points for guessing the blackouts and the time-travel are connected - is a little haphazard, but it is probably laid out best for good storytelling. I liked how a conversation between Evan and his dad is handled - no moments of surprise or trying to figure things out, just instant understanding as if this was a long-awaited confrontation. Occasional logic-slips like that aside, it's not very tough to follow (for a past-altering time-travel movie, that is). The child actors are all excellent and look perfect as younger versions of the adults, and they usually have tougher work anyway (especially the two earlier Evans, who do a great job speaking with the increased wisdom and long-pent-up frustration of an adult). The Butterfly Effect goes on a little long for its own good; while it's given the happiest ending it could've gotten away with, I think two fewer time-jumps (not one...too 1990's) might've better demonstrated that Terrible Price thing, while best accomplishing a more developed, matured riff on the Evan's original goal of unselfishly correcting the mistakes of the past. Test audiences would've hated it though. BACK TO THE B's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE