The Butterfly Effect

I want to look at this movie objectively but all I remember is seeing it with a group of friends. My car left, we chatted about the movie. I said I liked it, the guy I was with didn't. We both laughed at the sheer insanity of the movie and just how over the top dark it tried to be.

The other car was all on their menses and half liked it and the other half didn't. It ended in rage and tears and phone calls to us full of screaming and crying and then somehow ice cream? I'm still confused to this day.

So I give this film two thumbs up. The image of Kutcher waking up with no arms STILL cracks me up.

I thought Kutcher was fine in it.

I think most people's opinion on his acting in the movie is swayed by his off-screen personality or his previous roles. I'm pretty sure the whole dick sucking scene you talked about was supposed to make you chuckle a little. Some of the parts as an amputee also seemed light. So I don't think it's a mistake of the film, I think it was intentional.

Amy Smart was a bit meh for me. If I'm remembering correctly.

The movie is worth it for the deleted ending and the deleted scene where Ashton Kutcher gets raped. They should've kept that scene in the movie.

I wonder if this thread will turn into everyone talking about the sequels. 2 was bad. 3 was pretty awesome. There.

It is really sad considering how much better this movie could have been if they didn't cast the one actor that did not have a chance in hell to play the scenes in a manner that made them truly effective. The film has a fuck-ton of flaws, but a better actor in the lead could have made this a "good" movie. As is, it is an interesting failure, which is better than most of what Hollywood pumps out, sadly.

I agree pretty much with your sentiments on the first film.

I have never seen Kutcher in anything else, so you may be onto something there. I definitely didn't walk away thinking he was a bad actor.

I also thought the film was cornering along the lines of being a very (black) comedy at times.

I'm kinda curious to revisit it now, to see how it holds up. My interest is piqued in the sequels as well. I wasn't even aware that there was a third one!

I thought the directors ending was flat out dumb. How can a fetus even have a thought much less choke its self?

But I did enjoy the film, I mean it was kinda bad and dumb, but Amy Smart is unholy in her hotness, and I'm a sucker for time travel antics.

But Nab, it was 20 something college Kutcher who jumped backward into his previous infant body. He was thinking with his adult brain while trying to suffocate his infant one.

I never watched the theatrical version of The Butterfly Effect, but I have seen the Director's Cut a few times. It's one of the more disturbing movies I've seen. I'll never look at Eric Stoltz the same way after the basement scene. The whole prison sequence was creepy as well, but Kevin Durand was pretty good as Ashton Kutcher's cellmate.

Part 3 was about a time traveler who traveled back so he could solve cold cases for the police department. As well as get the reward for it. He tells the cops he's just psychic. Other than that, he lives with his sister and they both bear this guilt over a house fire that killed their parents. She helps monitor him during his time travel, since his is a little different from the previous ones.

Anyways, the plot revolves around being asked to solve the murder of his ex-gf from high school. His number one rule is to never intervene, only observe. However, he tries to save her, but she's already dead. He gets back and finds that he inadvertantly created a serial killer, since more women were murdered instead of just her. He keeps going back to try and prevent the murders from happening, but each one he prevents...more murders take their place. He becomes the primary suspect, and even he starts to wonder if maybe the serial killer is a future version of himself, since the killer seems to know whenever he tries to save someone AND kills people/friends who might get him convicted. Also, he seems to be getting increasingly mentally unstable from the time travel. At least it seemed that way.

It was pretty decent for what it was, and a twist you could see coming, but it had a totally different explanation than I expected.

This film is a masterpiece of awful cinema. I like how the conceit is "no matter how small a change is, it can destroy the future", and yet all Kutcher does is go back and do the biggest, dumbest, most interferingest shit he can think of. And he's SURPRISED when things change in unexpected ways?

Also, "YOU STARTED SMOKING AFTER I BLEW MYSELF UP"

Other greatness: Future Percy Jackson Logan Lerman repeatedly calling noted paedophile Eric Stoltz a fuckbag.

I still have a soft spot for this movie. I didn't think it was going to be so grim and it was one of my first experiences with a mainstream movie gone crossways after seeing and being influenced by Donnie Darko. I was a teenager and Ashton Kutcher's character was the first one I remember ever being named Evan in a movie. Was I a sucker?

Ha, yeah, that's a good point. He'd change things pretty drastically.

At least in the third one, him just hiding in a closet to make sure a girl isn't killed ends up causing a bunch of shit.