The Butterfly Effect

A butterfly flapping its wings could cause a tornado miles away

Evan, Kayleigh, Tommy, and Lenny are just four ordinary kids, but when a game goes tragically awry, it changes all of their lives forever. Evan is 20-something and a successful college student when his quest to remember the memories he's repressed is fulfilled. But the memories he can now recall should have been left alone, and when Evan discovers a way to change the past, he thinks he can save his friends. But what Evan doesn't know is that any little change he makes in the past creates and entirely different future. Evan is getting deeper and deeper in and there may be no way back.

Evan is played (surprisingly well) by Ashton Kutcher. He does a great job, although the planes of emotion coming from an actor from movies of the Dude-Where's-My-Car-caliber is entirely unexpected. The same goes for Amy Smart, who is a normally comedic actor, but in Butterfly she seamlessly transitions from heartbreakingly tragic to upbeat prep characters. The chaos theory is a great premise for a movie, although the premise has been polluted by some silly plot factors.

Butterfly is shocking to the max. I mean, seriously disturbing. Keep small children and kids under age 16 away from it. There are a lot of under-the-sheet scenes along with themes like massive drug abuse, animal abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, child pornography, suicide, a LOT of violence, and sex, so just be aware. This is a very good movie, or at least I was impressed by it. The acting is very very good and the story is just so so heartbreaking.

Conclusion: If you can stomach the strong, well, everything, then go for it.

Rated: R for violence, sexual content, language and brief drug use.

Trivia:

• During one of Evan's "flashback" scenes, he can be heard reading part of Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder". In this story, a group of people travel millions of years into the past to hunt dinosaurs. One of them accidentally steps on and kills a butterfly, which dramatically alters the future.
• Ashton Kutcher did extensive research on psychology, mental disorders, and chaos theory to prepare for his role in this film.

See the trailer here