Film of the year for 2004! (The Butterfly Effect (DVD))

Member Name: Andyp1985

Product:	The Butterfly Effect (DVD)
Date:	07/07/06 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great story and entertaining throughout

Disadvantages: ends differnetly to cinema version

I am a great fan of this film. From start to finish it has you glued to your seat. This film is a lot different to any other film I've watched and has some interesting ideas. The film stars Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart, who play their parts well. Particularly Amy Smart who has to adapt her character, as it changes throughout the film. Now I'll explain what this film is about...

The film starts off with Evan as a grown up, rushing into an office. He seems in a rush, and you can hear voices shouting out his name in the background, making you think that he has escaped and shouldn't be there or something. He writes a note on the lines of how "if he can somehow go back and save her, and if it doesn't work then he’ll already be dead anyway."

Then the film goes back 13 years earlier, to when Evan is only a 7 year old boy. Evan is taken to school, where his mum drops him off and is about to leave when his teacher bangs on the car window. It turns out that Evan has drawn a disturbing picture of a man holding a knife, with 2 people dead on the floor. What makes this more of a big deal is that he doesn't remember doing it!

Evan is taken to an institute with his mum. His mum is concerned that Evan may have picked up the same condition as is father, although at this point we're not sure what his father has. Here the doctor suggests that Evan starts to write journals of his every day life so that when he reads them back it may jog his memory. We assume that Evan had a blackout and that’s why he doesn't remember drawing the picture. It’s these journal entries that become significant as the film gets going.

The next main event that happens is Evan going to Kayleigh’s house. When he gets there Kayleigh excitably tells him that her dad’s got a video camera. His dad then tells him he gets to be the star, Much to Tommy’s anger (Kayleigh’s brother). Then there’s a flash of light, (another blackout) and the next thing you know their down the basement, the 2 of them are naked. Here we learn that the dad is some sick pedophile.

Evans mum goes back to see the doctor at the institution. It’s here that he recommends Evan seeing his father might help. His father is locked away in the institute. Young Evan is clearly excited about seeing his father, but when he gets to see him, one minute their talking calmly, then again there’s a flash, the next thing Evan is on the floor and his dad is strangling him, trying to kill him. He says he “has to kill him, it’s the only way.” From this we assume that Evans dad is some kind of psychopath. His dad is then knocked on the head by a guard, which kills him. Evan then has to go to the funeral with his mum, with Kayleigh at his side, Evan is clearly upset.

The film then jumps in time to 6 years later, here we now see Evan at Kayleigh’s as a teenager, with Tommy, and their new found friend Lenny. Tommy is looking for something, and the next thing he finds what he is looking for, a chunk of dynamite. They walk through the woods to a house which has a letter box outside it. Here Lenny is made to put the explosive in the letter box. Evan is seen cupping Kayleigh’s ears with his hands. Then another flash! Lenny has frozen in shock in the woods, while Evan doesn’t know what has happened; he’s blacked it out again. The teenagers return home, Evan’s mum is angry that Evan is claiming he’s blacked it out, she is wondering what is wrong with Lenny. She realizes he is telling the truth.

Evan’s mum takes him to the doctor again, this time deciding hypnosis is a good idea to find out what happened. He starts to remember what has happened, saying he sees a car, but this all seems to be hurting him, the next thing he’s having a nose bleed and shaking vigorously. The doctor has no choice but to wake Evan up.

The 3 of them (Evan, Kayleigh and Tommy) go to the cinema, Kayleigh is down. When Evan asks about the mailbox and what has happened, Tommy shoves him against the wall. He tells him never to bring that up again. In the cinema, Kayleigh gets upset and walks out, Evan follows her to find she has cuts on her arms. Her dad has been abusing her. He kisses her as Tommy walks out and sees them. Tommy is angry and yells “what do you think you are doing?!” Unfortunately there are teenagers across the room buying popcorn and they think he’s talking to them, they trip him up. He falls to the ground, then gets up, calmly walks back and batters the teenager with the metal pole.

After this, Evan’s mum tells him that they are moving. Clearly she’s had enough and thinks that moving might help Evan. Before they move though, there’s still worse to come. Evan, Lenny and Kayleigh are walking in the woods when they see some smoke. They run over, and find that Tommy has put Evan’s Dog in a sack, he lights the sack with lighter fluid. Evan runs over, with Kayleigh close behind. Tommy picks up a bit of wood, swings for Evan but knocks out his sister. Angry, he hits Evan too. Evan has another blackout, and when he wakes up finds that the dog has been burnt. Lenny is staring in to space.

Evan and his mum then get in the van and leave. Kayleigh sees and runs after them. Evans sees her and writes a note that he’ll come back for her. Then that’s it for the teenager, it then forwards on to 7 further years later, where we now see Evan at Uni. He seems happy and tells his new friend “Thumper”, they should celebrate following 7 years without a single blackout. This is the significant point in the film. They go out to celebrate, and while playing pool, he picks some girl up and takes her back to his flat. Here she finds his diaries under his bed. She gets him to read a passage, we assume from this he has never tried reading them before because when he starts reading one of the passages…in this case it’s the one concerning the event of his dog being killed, he is transported back to that time. Here we also learn that Lenny tries to cut the rope, but Tommy threatens him that he’ll cut his mothers throat in her sleep. Also Tommy angrily tells Evan “There are a million other sisters in the world so why do you have to f**k with mine?” This is something we didn’t see before as Evan blacked it out.

Evan is shaken up; it seems to him that that was more than just a dream; leaving the girl he drives to Lenny’s house. Lenny seems in a bad way, the events of the past have obviously affected him in a bad way. Evan is shocked to see he is working on yet another “model” plane. His room is now full of them. Evan finds it hard to get a word out of Lenny, the sole purpose he is there, is to find out if what he saw really happened. Suddenly Lenny has an outburst “Drop it or I’ll slit your mother’s throat in her sleep!!” Evan realizes from this it was more than just a dream. Lenny is clearly upset and Evan leaves.

Evan starts reading all this other journals that he has written, remembering what has happened. He goes back to the mailbox incident. Cupping Kayleigh’s ears, he drops the fag from his mouth and burns himself. This time we see that the mailbox explodes, more importantly, we see that a woman and her child open the box and are killed in the explosion. Now we know why Lenny has been affected so badly, he is feeling guilty over the events from the past.

Evan has a meal with his mum, where he discovers his dad managed to find a way to remember his blackouts much after around the same age that Evan is now. They see a psychic when they go out of the restaurant where she says “he was never meant to be.” This upsets his mum because before she had Evan she had 3 stillbirths.

He goes back to his flat and reads the journal entry about his childhood, going to Kayleigh’s. This is the event where he and Kayleigh were in the movie. He doesn’t go back to it this time though. Instead he drives to find Kayleigh. Here she is working in a restaurant. When he asks her about this memory she freaks out, angry that he is stirring up the past, She angrily yells at Evan “Why did you leave me here to rot?!”

When he gets back to his flat he has a message left from Tommy. He finds out that Kayleigh has killed herself, Tommy blaming him. Evan goes to the funeral, but waits behind so he can be there alone. Here he opens the note “I’ll Come Back for you” and drops it on her coffin.

Back at the flat Evan is sat thinking. He wonders whether he can “heal” scars, as the scar he made on his chest. This time he does go back to the time where he’s down the basement. Kayleigh’s dad asks them to take their clothes off, only this time Evan has the power to change events. He warns her dad that if he continues his ways, it will lead to Kayleigh’s suicide. He tells him to treat her how a loving father treats a daughter. He tells him he needs to discipline Tommy, as he is the one out of control. He gets Kayleigh to say “Don’t ever touch me again.” Transported back in time only this time he finds that he is somewhere else, in a different room, that event has had an affect on time. He’s now with Kayleigh. He has successfully brought her back to life, only now their going out.

Only now he’s not the professor favorite pupil, Thumper hates him, and now he’s friends with a rebellious crowd, that cheats their exams. When he wants to do something special for Kayleigh, in this case he takes her out for a meal; he gets the “Pledges” to help him do this. A group of retards who follow what he wants them to do. Evan’s character is now not such a good guy as to how he was before. Yet when they go for the meal, they are interrupted. It turns out that someone has trashed Evan’s car. He sees a dog collar on it and realizes that it’s Tommy. It turns out that Tommy has just been released a few weeks ago.

Evan goes back to the house and gets some spray as protection, he then says he’s going to get a gun. Kayleigh is angry and blames Tommy’s ways on her father, who abused Tommy as a child. They go out into the woods, where Tommy comes out from behind a tree. Tommy is angry at Evan; he heard what he said to his father as a kid, because he was in the room. He blames Evan for his father’s way. He attacks Evan with a bat. Kayleigh rushes to an emergency phone. Evan fights back with the spray, he kicks him and hits him with the bat, for ruining Lenny’s life. He goes to far and kills Tommy. He is taken to prison.

He gets his mum to bring some of his diaries, realizing its his best chance to get out of there, unfortunately she doesn’t bring all of them, but she does bring 2 of them. When he gets away from his mum some bullies take the books off him. He tries to fight them back but fails, he does manage to tear a few of the pages out from the fight, this proves enough to get his cellmate to help him later on.

His cell mate is religious, he uses God to get him on his side, saying “he went to his cell for a reason”. Betting him a pack of fags he insists he can prove it to him. They go back to the cell. He goes back to the drawing incident. Now we see him draw that picture of the man and a knife, with the 2 people dead on the floor. He gets up and walks across the room, he stabs his hands in the middle of both hands. Then is returned back to prison. Now his mate believes that “Jesus speaks to him in his dreams!” He goes to the bully’s cell and tricks them. He stabs one and knocks out the other. Then he has his diaries back. His mate follows him in and holds the gate closed. He returns to the time when they are in the scrap yard in the woods. He gives Lenny a sharp object to cut the rope so he can free the dog. This time he promises to Tommy that he’ll do whatever he wants, he’ll leave his sister alone. Tommy relents and frees the dog. But Lenny, using the sharp object kills Lenny from behind!

Now he ends up back in Thumper’s room, his nose is severely bleeding; he is rushed to the institution. He now has a bit of brain damage. He slyly gets the keys to Lenny’s room, where he is now locked away. Lenny blames Evan for where he is now. He insists that Evan knew what was going to happen when he gave him the sharp object, and he should be where he is, in the institute.

Back at the Uni, he reads another passage. This time he goes to see his dad. Asking him how he can make things right. His dad tells him he can’t play god. Evan doesn’t believe him, and this is where his dad goes crazy, and tries to kill him. We now understand why he does this, to stop him making things any worse, where as before this was blacked out.

He finds that Kayleigh is now a prostitute and a real state. He takes her to a café and tells her what has happened, how he has changed time. Obviously she doesn’t believe him, who would?! She takes his wallet, and angrily tells him to go to the mailbox incident and stop that from happening, or go back when she was 7 and “f**k her, straighten her out a bit!”

He goes back to his apartment with Thumper to read another diary entry, taking Kayleigh’s advice, he goes back to the mailbox incident. He stops the woman and her child being blown up. This time he ends up back with Kayleigh, only now she’s with Lenny! He thinks everything is ok at first, but then discovers he’s now a cripple, he’s lost his arms and his legs. He now finds that Tommy is reformed as some devoted Christian, because he thinks that he saved the woman! Evan is angry he goes with Kayleigh alone.

She tells him that despite the fact she hated her dad when she was younger she stayed with him when her parents split up, because she couldn’t bare to never see Evan again. Evan realizes that everyone around him is happy and goes to kill himself in the bath. He can’t quite bring himself to bring his head completely in the water. Tommy comes in and gets him out, telling him not to give up.

He takes him to see his mum, where he finds out that his mum is not well. She now has severe lung cancer. She started smoking ever since he was blown up! He promises to go back and make everything alright again, scaring his mum, she doesn’t want him to go back as he is acting just like his father did.

Back in the flat he gets Lenny to help him by getting him to turn the diary to the right page. He goes back to when they are in the basement again. This time he finds the dynamite. He threatens to light it. When he does, he drops it and Kayleigh picks it up she is blown up. He returns lying in the institute. The diaries aren’t there. He rushes to see the doctor, asking for them. The doctor tells him that there are no diaries, and it’s just his way of coping for the death of Kayleigh by changing his memory. It turns out his father was the same, always asking for photos that he never had. Evan faints.

They could have ended it like this but thankfully they don’t. His mum comes to find that Evan has serious brain damage now. Following Evan’s request, she has brought with her the home movies she made when he was younger.

At night Evan breaks out and goes to the office where the videos are stored. We are now where the movie started. Evan writes his message, and then he turns the video on and starts playing it. It’s a movie of his mum giving birth. He goes back as a baby and kills himself by strangling himself with the biblical cord.

By doing this Kayleigh and Tommy end up living with their mum. Evan never exists. His mum has a child with someone else. Lenny is happy, Tommy turns out a better person, and Kayleigh ends up marrying someone else. Not a great ending but it makes sense; this ending however is different to the cinema version.

The cinema version ended much differently, in this version, the video he watched was him playing with Kayleigh as a young boy. He went back to that time and told Kayleigh he hated her and never wanted to see her again. This had the same affect as above, only Evan was still alive and he burnt his diaries when he returned. He saw Kayleigh walk past him in the street and there was a glance between them. I think this was a much better ending.

Well, I think that pretty much covers the whole story! Hope that helps, now there’s no need for you to watch it lol! I would recommend this film to anyone, as in the title, I think this was the best film that year!

Summary: Definatly worth watching.