The Butterfly Effect (2004) Review

The Butterfly Effect (2004) Review

The Butterfly Effect stars Ashton Kutcher as Evan, who is plagued by random black outs throughout his adolescence. He can’t remember anything that happens during these events, so starts keeping a journal to help jog his memory and hopefully put an end to the black outs. His childhood is rough, to say the very least. The father of two of his best friends, Kayleigh and Lenny, is a pervert, Lenny develops psychopathic tendencies, his own father is in prison, and the list goes on. I won’t detail every tragedy in his childhood. 

By the time Evan is in college, Kayleigh and Lenny and their other friend Tommy are out of his life and he hasn’t had black outs in years, but when he re-reads his old journals, it takes him back to those moments during which he was blacked out in a form of time travel, where he’s able to alter events and change his present life—for better, and for worse. 

It’s an intriguing premise, which is what drew me to this movie initially. Typically, Ashton Kutcher is known for his comedic roles—I remember him best as Kelso on That 70’s Show—but here, he plays it pretty much straight, and does a good job. All of the acting, really, is solid. Many of the cast members were relatively unknown at the time, but some of them have gone on to have pretty great careers. Elden Henson, who played adult Tommy, now plays Foggy Nelson on Netflix’s Daredevil, and the kid who played young Evan went on to star in the Percy Jackson film series. 

When The Butterfly Effect first came out, it was trashed by critics, but I think it’s worth another look. The reason I think people turned their noses up at it was because of the dark nature of the story. As I said, Evan has a hellish childhood, and when he starts changing the past, his future becomes equally screwed up. With each major change, you hope he can make his life right, but deep down, you know this can’t end well. What I like best is how at the center of everything is the love story between Evan and Kayleigh. He loves Kayleigh, and wants both of them to live happily together, but no matter what it does, it seems he can’t have that.

There are two versions of this movie, a theatrical cut and a director’s cut, which have totally different endings. I first saw the theatrical version, which has a really weak ending. The director’s cut is the definitive version. The ending is far from your typical Hollywood ending, but it’s the right ending for the story. 

I think The Butterfly Effect is an underrated thriller. It’s not amazing, it’s not ground-breaking, and it’s no classic, but I think it gets an unfair reputation. The characters are interesting, some of the plot elements are shocking, and the spin on the whole time travel concept is creative.