The Butterfly Effect (2004)
Change one thing, change everything.
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Melora Walters, Amy Smart, Elden Henson, William Lee Scott, John Patrick Amedori, Kevin G. Schmidt, Jesse James, Logan Lerman, Sarah Widdows, Jake Kaese, Cameron Bright, Eric Stoltz, Callum Keith Rennie, Lorena Gale, Nathaniel DeVeaux, John Tierney, Kendall Cross, John B. Lowe, Ethan Suplee, Camille Sullivan, Tara Wilson, Jesse Hutch, Grant Thompson
Director: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber
Running Time: 113 minutes
US MPAA rating: N/AUK BBFC rating: 15
Drama, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
Eric Bress and J. Mackye Grubo, who previously collaborated on the brilliantly fatalistic way-of-all-flesh shocker Final Destination 2, have once again pooled their considerable talents to write and direct 'The Butterfly Effect', an intricately plotted time-travel psychodrama which mixes mindbending inventiveness with engaging moral dilemmas - and which explores the darker side of miracles and messianism, suffering, sacrifice and salvation far more intelligently than, say, The Passion of the Christ.
As a boy, Evan Treborn suffered his fair share of traumatic formative experiences - an institutionalised father who almost killed him, abuse in the family of his two best friends, a prank gone horrifically wrong and a friend becoming increasingly unhinged - but Evan had only the sketchiest impression of these events thanks to the strange memory blackouts which regularly accompanied them. So when he moved town with his mother, Evan's memories were already dim and his troubled past seemed well and truly behind him. At age twenty, however, seven years to the day after his blackouts ceased, Evan finds his childhood journals and discovers that by reading entries from them he is able to transport himself back to those forgotten episodes, and can even change their course before returning to the present. Evan is determined to 'fix' things in his rediscovered past so that he and his old friends can have happier lives, but he soon learns the hard way that even the tiniest alteration to the past can have gravely unpredictable consequences for the present.
Possible worlds, chaos theory and alternative reality are normally the exclusive province of philosophers and quantum physicists, but such tricky concepts have also often lent themselves well to the accessible narratives of feature films (from It's a Wonderful Life to 'Sliding Doors') - and feature films have always specialised in alternative realities of one kind or another. In 'The Butterfly Effect', Bress and Grubo ingeniously make cinema itself a clarifying metaphor for alternative realities, using recognisable changes in genre to demarcate the changes in Evan's circumstances. The early scenes of Evan's childhood recall coming-of-age films like 'Stand By Me' or 'The River's Edge', the later realities that he engineers evoke in turn the campus comedy, the prison flick, and the asylum drama, while Evan's transformation into a self-pitying paraplegic is pure 'Born on the Fourth of July'. These radical shifts in genre are an economic way of depicting the differences between Evan's parallel realities, but - just as importantly - they give 'The Butterfly Effect' a variety of texture that is unusual, disorienting and very diverting.
Equally unusual are the demands which 'The Butterfly Effect' makes on the versatility of its actors. Amy Smart plays Evan's would-be girlfriend Kaylee as sorority babe in one scene and crack whore in the next, while William Lee Scott as Kaylee's brother Tommy goes from psychotic badboy to preppy bible-basher. Ashton Kutcher as Evan grows ever more desperate and deranged (and looks more and more like Jesus) as each attempt to improve reality engenders greater problems. Previously best known for being Demi Moore's beau and one of the dudes in 'Dude, Where's My Car?', here Kutcher proves that in the right kind of alternative reality he really can act.
'The Butterfly Effect' is a true original - and while it quite possibly contains as many holes as Evan's memory, half the fun is finding your way through them.
It's Got: Troubled love, college, prison, madness, lots of nosebleeds, and more paradoxes than you could fit in an average-sized journal.
It Needs: For the sorority and fraternity scenes to be just a little less cheesy (although it is an integral part of the campus genre)
Alternatives: Donnie Darko, It's a Wonderful Life, 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure', Groundhog Day, 'Sliding Doors', 'Frequency'
Summary: This ingenious fable of time-travel, chaos theory and self-sacrifice is this year's 'Donnie Darko'.
External Links
Official Web Site
The Butterfly Effect at the IMDB
Comments32 Comments |
| Simply awesome. Amazing movie. |
| Comment by:- Pascale | www.nochepromotions.com... | 10 July 2004 | ip: logged |
| I think this movie was a great movie! i luved it so much that i watched it 3 times in the movies, and i bought the movie and seen it at home 5 times. its great. every actor and actress in that movie is simply awesome! i luv them all. and Ashton did such a great job to go from comedy to drama. it's amazing how he pulled it off! I really think i have a crush on John patrick amdedori, Jesse James and last but not least, Logan Lerman. Hehe! they were such gorgeous people in the movie! lol!! i simply LOVED it! Great job! |
| Comment by:- Nikole Lorenzo | www.fotolog.net/nikki_lz... | 02 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| I thought the buuterfly effect was an great movie and it goes to show that Ashton kutcher can act, i have now got a mega- crush on John Amedori (13 year old evan) he was great in the movie and hes so cute and as for tommy well he can rot in hell, i cried so much during this movie but i still think it was great and it is now 1 of my fav movies! |
| Comment by:- Krissy | | 08 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| Can anyone who loves this movie, aside from myself, actually spell or command the basics of gramar? 'buuterfly'? 'luved'?, 'luv'? You guys do realize that you're supposed to capitalize the first word in a sentence, yes? And that you capitalize the pronoune 'I'? Also, 'fav' is not an actual word. And it's "was a great" not "was an great" and "it should be "saw it at home" not "seen it at home", considering the tense of the first part of that statement. And, finally, numbers smaller than one one hundred should be spelled out; not written as a numeral. No wonder retarded movies fill the top 100 list of movies for all time. There's nothing but inbred moronic twelve year old girls watching them. |
| Comment by:- Anonymous | | 14 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| By the way - the film lost its credibility by failing to end at the point where Evan blows his arms off and has to face a reality where he has saved everyone's future; leaving his own a complete wreck. Unfortunately - and probably due to studio interference - the movie continues for another ten or fifteen minutes to desperately pull out a "happy-ending" to placate the throngs of twelve year old girls who surely would have been devistated if their beloved Ashton were to wind up an amputee at the closing of the film. Aside from that final insult to the viewer, the rest of the movie was great. I'd refer friends to see this film, but reservedly considering the way the ending panders to the audience. |
| Comment by:- Anonymous | | 14 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| Can anyone who loves this movie, aside from myself, actually spell or command the basics of gramar? 'buuterfly'? 'luved'?, 'luv'? What right has this person got to criticise others when they cant even get it right themselve, your not supposed to start a sentence with "and". Anyway the movie was great I luved it did u guys luv it to. i thought the buuterfly effect was simply kick ass |
| Comment by:- Anonymous | | 15 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| Pedantic Speller, you spelt "pronoun" and "grammar" wrong. Also, how does bad spelling of "inbred moronic twelve year old girls" cause bad movies to soar through the charts? Did you not just say you liked this movie to? Anyway, moving on from the Alpha & Omega of "gramar", and on to the movie. I thought this movie was really riveting, unlike the rest of Kutcher's films. The only bad point was the lack of common sense on Evan's part. I'm pretty sure that if he went back to the part where he made Lenny stab Tommy, but never gave him the shard, and still reasoned with him, everybody would be happy... Except Pedantic Speller who probably trawled through the subtitles looking for errors. |
| Comment by:- Phil | | 16 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| Ha ha ha ha. Yes "Pedantic Speller", I agree with a few of your pick ups, but yeah, you did spell grammar wrong which cancels you out. When Evan became an amputee, his mother was dying of lung cancer in hospital, hence not everyone's lives were perfect. She started smoking heavily due to the fact Evan became an amputee. Also, the ending was hardly happy!! The 12 yr old's would've expected him to save everyone, including himself. The ending was fitting and very sad. I cried, and I hardly ever cry from a movie. So, there you have it. 4 1/2 stars from me. |
| Comment by:- Shaz | | 21 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| i loved this movie - it freaked me out the first time i watched it but it was really intriguing. i have the biggest crush on john patrick amedori now! (he's evan at 13, but he's 17 in real life.) him in that Independant tee... ohh. drool. i was annoyed there were a few different endings, because the one in the cinema (where kaylee and evan pass by each other at the end) was definatley the best. the one where he killed himself as a baby really made me cry, it was so pointless! i think if he went back to the time he and kaylee made that porn movie when they were kids together, and he told the dad to stop hitting kaylee AND tommy, everything would have been fine - no prison bit, no amputee story, no stillbirth baby. this movie rocks, and so does john patrick. |
| Comment by:- ~*kitten*~ | | 23 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| The movie was amazing and beautiful, as far as I can see- not only for me:)))I don't like Ashton very much, but in Butterfly he was brilliant! Thank You:) Peace |
| Comment by:- lou | | 25 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| The movie 'The Butterfly Effect' was a wonderful original. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it did have a large amount of innapropriate language, but don't all movies today? It was a great movie no matter what anyone says. And people from all ages appreciated it, not just moronic twelve year olds. Otherwise than that, the actors and actresses did a great job and were perfect for the roles! |
| Comment by:- Dallas | | 29 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| .. boa.. der film war so kuhl.. wahnsinn.. echt.. :D.. .. hahah.. and you all don't understand what i have written.. :P |
| Comment by:- blinki | | 29 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| I think 'The Butterfly Effect' was a great, no an EXCELLENT movie! I watched it with my mum and dad on a friday night and i watched it twice on satrday and three times one sunday. It is one of those movies that just catch your eye and at the start you might think ' ok, this is strange, i want to watch something else' but as it goes on, it gets harder and harder to look away from the screen. I also agree with everyone else on the fact that John Patrick Amedori is VERY HOT, but we must also give credit to all the other actors, who were DEFINATLY the perfect people for the movie. For a while, i thought kaylee was played by Tara Reid, maybe it is a separted at birth case,lol! Unfourtunately, i have to use the computer at school, which enables me to access most sights with the oh-so-lovely john on them. I did have the internet at home, but my little brother decided to look up porn and order some straight to our door! Well, thanks for listening (well actually, watching) me rattle on about this GREAT movie. i give it 11 stars out of 10 |
| Comment by:- Shara-Lee | N/A | 29 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| It's me again, if anyone can find any websites with DECENT PICTURES and BIOGRAPHIES, please send me the address's. If you are kind enough to do this, please make sure you put: butterfly effect sites, so i dont delete it, thinking its junk mail. You an send me stuff at: lil_angel_from_below@hotmail.com |
| Comment by:- Shara-Lee | N/A | 29 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| Oh Mann, ich glaube in jedem "Forum" auf der ganzen Welt werden ähnliche Diskussionen geführt....naja.....Film war die ersten 50 Minuten strunzlangweilig,nach Evans entdeckung seiner Fahigkeiten wurde der Spannungsmoment doch sehr erhöht. Ashton Kutcher ist ein verschissener Schwanzlutscher Translation: Ashton Kutcher plays nice in this one. |
| Comment by:- Hans | | 31 August 2004 | ip: logged |
| OMG I think John Patrick Amedori is the most hottest MAN in the world.I wouldent say I was obsessed with him, but I have a boyfriend named Justin and he looks exactly like JPA |
| Comment by:- casey | | 01 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| I luff Thumper in this movie!! He ish soo Kawaii!! If you know who plays him...Please tell me! |
| Comment by:- Biki Tendo | | 03 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| does anyone else think that evan as a teenager is extremally sexy??!!?? i'm speachless... |
| Comment by:- callie | | 06 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| Great movie, but I got the DVD version the other day. How lame was the ending with the baby killing itself!! The cinema version made a lot more sense with young Evan distancing himself from Kaylee to resolve the problem. Then years down the track they end up passing each other on the street... Hopefully they will re-release the DVD with the proper ending it deserves!! |
| Comment by:- Pete (AU) | | 10 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| OMG,This was one of the greatist movies I ever saw,Ashton Kutcher is the sooooo HOT, and Amy Smart totally kicked ASS and John Patric Amedori is totally HOT to,and to all of the people that made this movie posible you are awsome. |
| Comment by:- Anna | | 12 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| I've seen four different endings to this movie: 1) The baby kills itself- soo dumb 2) They pass on the street and talk to each other- out of tune with the rest of the film 3) They pass each other on the street and he goes after her- same as with 2 4) They pass each other but she doesnt notice and he just keeps walking- the best and yet the only one not featured on the dvd. |
| Comment by:- anon | | 18 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| the last ending is featured on the dvd u probally watched the directors cut. if u want the proper endin u have 2 watch the theatrical cut. john patrick amedori is a great actor, especially when he was getting hypmotised. logan is hott as well and he is closer to my age than john. |
| Comment by:- minelli | | 20 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| This was the best movie ever!! i loved it and i love John Amedori as well he is soo0o0o0o0o hot i think Tommy is hot, does anyone know his real name?!?! This movie made me cry i have watched it so many times it has heaps of twist and turns!! My fav movie EVER!! |
| Comment by:- EmMsY | www.movie-gazette.com/cinerevi... | 27 September 2004 | ip: logged |
| OMG JP Amedori is probably one of the best teenage actors i have ever seen and hes hot BONUS!!! does n e one know where i can write to him? logan Lerman is gonna be hot to when hes a bit older! LUVED THA MOVIE! |
| Comment by:- Hannah | | 17 October 2004 | ip: logged |
| i didnt reall watch the movie cuz ashton was so godamn H O T and i kept picturing him as sweaty and oily. i once had a dream about him in a toga running towards me in a toga and we hugged. then he said "oh wat a lovely tea party..." |
| Comment by:- sunset | ashtonrules.com | 02 November 2004 | ip: logged |
| i just watched the movie. damn that were 2 boring hours of my life i'll never get back. the whole concept seems to be written by a newly graduated film student. if you ever watched and enjoyed fightclub then the story itself is easy to look through. the movie uses the same structure. furthermore the movie has no real climax, because it goes on and on after the reason for the blackouts are revealed (just like in "the ring"). for ppl that like mainstream junk that might be ok. if you saw enough good movies for that you really need some brain like fightclub or ghost in the shell then this is absolutely no choice for you. |
| Comment by:- XiaoPang | www.lamemovies.com | 20 November 2004 | ip: logged |
| john amedori is the HOTTEST HOTTEST HOTTEST guy in the universe!!!! since i seen the butterfly effect i hav been CRAZY about him!!he is the cutest/hottest guy ive EVER EVER EVER EVR EVR EVR seen in my entire life!!love ya |
| Comment by:- alyssa | | 09 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| john amedori is the HOTTEST HOTTEST HOTTEST guy in the universe!!!! since i seen the butterfly effect i hav been CRAZY about him!!he is the cutest/hottest guy ive EVER EVER EVER EVR EVR EVR seen in my entire life!!love ya |
| Comment by:- alyssa | | 09 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| This film was lushhhhhhh!! how on earth did the writers think the movie up? the only things is that they make the acters swear to much and the movie seems really long and is pointless at the end bcuz....not saying because i dont wont to reunin it but its really confusing! but brill! fav film!! xxxx |
| Comment by:- sand guy | | 18 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| "if you saw enough good movies for that you really need some brain like fightclub" Fightclub requires brain? AHhahaha! Of course there are some minor flaws with the movie in general, but overall I thought it was extremely thought provoking and very interesting. Even though Evan's travels back in time do nothing but make things worse, after the movie was over, I was left me with a feeling of emptiness regarding my own life. Like somehow I was missing out on what might have been and how much fuller my life could be if I could go back and relive moments from my past, things that aren't suppose to happen. Whats interesting is that the ability is genetic and may be passed on to Evan's children, possibly leaving room for some type of sequel. |
| Comment by:- No One | | 20 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| A sequel would completely and utterly fail. The film was amazing. |
| Comment by:- Monet The Painter | www.monetishomosexual.com... | 22 December 2004 | ip: logged |
| John P. Amedori...The words that come to my mind are...****ing Gorgeous. If anyone knows how to e-mail him (haha, I'm so pathetic) then please e-mail me at caligurl210654@aol.com ,thanks |
| Comment by:- Kris | | 03 January 2005 | ip: logged |
