Effective but blink and you'll miss it (The Butterfly Effect (DVD))

Member Name: bilbob20

Product:	The Butterfly Effect (DVD)
Date:	15/05/09 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An interesting premise

Disadvantages: A weak lead and too brief scenario's

All too often, you head off to the cinema hyped up from rave reviews and the promise of high calibre actors, then come away feeling robbed of a ten pound note. Then, there are those occasional alternatives where you mull over the DVD for a while before deciding to give it a shot, take it home, prepare yourself for a stinker, and come away feeling hugely satisfied by a film that is better than it ought to be.

Maybe it's the critics have created the illusion, and the rest of us have just followed suit, but Ashton Kutcher is hugely annoying, cant really act, and has taken part in a mammoth amount of stinkers for a career so short. More famous for his spouse than his work, Kutcher turns in a performance here that is almost Oscar worthy. Just kidding, but like the film, the performance is a good sight better than expected.

Kutcher stars as Evan, a young man who has traumatic black outs, and who comes out of them confused and desperate for answers. When he consults his childhood diaries, he finds that he has the ability to travel back in time to the situations he is reading about. However, the ability to change the past doesn't always mean a rosier future, and he finds that the changes often have disastrous results for his childhood sweetheart Kayleigh. Time begins to run out though, as his doctors attempt to control his apparent delusions and he finds that he must right the past before its too late.

This film is not dissimilar to that other psychological teen drama Donnie Darko in that it places a male teenager in the lead role, and that he suffers from some kind of psychological illness. However, whereas that film wallowed in its own pretentions, Butterfly manages to sidestep its own self-indulgence. The story is swift and often to the bone, inferring child and spousal abuse in just about every scenario. The resolve for each segment of the film lets it down somewhat by making it too easy, but that's a side issue. The bigger issue with the picture is that it packs too much into its running time and could have made better use of less stories.

The performance from Kutcher is enjoyable as he unravels and tries to hold onto the last gasp of his own sanity. He is out-acted (it was never going to be that hard) by a superb Amy Smart who steps into different guises depending on how each scenario plays out. Her broken down drug addict in one sequence is excellently played, and gives the film a depth that perhaps it might have lacked had a lesser actress been put in the role.

The film is directed and written by Eric Bress and J.Mackye Gruber and is an inspired premise. Its not without its flaws, and runs out of steam as we are thrown from one scenario to the next with an all too convenient twist in each one. However, the film shows promise for its largest portion, and allows the actors to get their teeth in to various parts of their performance. They must have done a good job if they can make Kutcher appear to be a better actor than he is.

*Infinifilm was applied to a collection of New Line Cinema's most celebratory movies. It promised to take the viewer beyond the experience of the movie itself by presenting the film on a newer crisper print, and a host of interactive features. The special features are presented in a user friendly manner on this format, and the one's available on this particular presentation are; The Science Of Psychology Of the Chaos Theory; The Alure of Time Travel; Various Commentary's; Alternative Scenes and Endings; Trailers; Storyboards; The script and a photo gallery.

The Infinifilm is available in format on the following movies;
The Mask, Little Nicky, 13 Days, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Butterfly Effect, Rush Hour2, Final Destination, Elf among others.

Summary: A decent and interesting psychological drama