The Butterfly Effect | ||||
J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz, William Lee Scott, Elden Henson, Ethan Suplee, Melora Walters 2004 |
Everyone knows that if you go back in time and change the smallest thing, there will be serious repercussions in the future. This hoary tenet of time-travel sci-fi, familiar to authors such as H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein and fictional characters from Superman to Homer Simpson, gets the B-movie treatment with a rickety, ill-explained storyline and an acting-challenged star in "The Butterfly Effect." If you'll be amused watching pretty-boy lunkhead Ashton Kutcher of TV's "That '70s Show" strain in vain to be taken seriously as a thespian, this is worth a look on cable. Otherwise, forget it. Kutcher is overwhelmed by the role of Evan, a hard-luck college student scarred by traumatic childhood events he blacked out of his memory. Somehow, when reading a journal he kept about calamities in his life, he's thrust back to those moments of crisis with all of his memories intact. He might be able to change the past for the better, but he could make things worse, too. Evan's powers are never explained in real or fantasy terms, undermining any suspension of disbelief. And thanks to Kutcher, the better efforts of Amy Smart as Evan's true love, Eric Stoltz as her shady father, Melora Walters as Evan's mother and Elden Henson as his best friend are for naught. The lack of inspired, coherent plotting and a charismatic leading man had the expected ... effect. | |||
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