The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Directors: Eric Bress & J. Mackye Gruber
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Melora Walters, Amy Smart & Elden Henson

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Man, it's a shame when a good idea sells out like this one did. I can safely say that these filmmakers sold-out without a guilty conscience on my part because I watched the interviews on the disc. They sprinkled their speaking time with bullshit phrases like "high concept script" and how child abuse means so much to them. Here's some advice: don't make a film about fucking time travel if you want to deal with child abuse. You also don't let Ashton Kutcher play your leading man. I could understand casting him if it was his TV-to-film debut. The kid wants to prove his chops. He's got more riding on it. By the time this movie started filming, however, Kutcher had already proven himself as kind of a one-trick pony. Perhaps it was fitting casting, though, because the script has the same kind of one trick gimmick going itself. A great premise that turned into a mediocre script with a bad actor, The Butterfly Effect should have been so much more than it turned out to be. The DVD rubs this fact in the viewer's face, too, as it has several documentary-like features where prominent scientists in various fields speak passionately about the possibilities of chaos theory. The butterfly's wings that led to this one getting made should only get cancer.

March 10
apartment TV, afternoon

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