“The Butterfly Effect” (New Line Cinema)
Ashton Kutcher is on top of the world. He has a hit TV series “That 70’s Show,” and a blazing personal life – a romance with Demi Moore. What he doesn’t have is a hit movie. His new film “The Butterfly Effect” is one of the worst movies of this year and the last ten. It is so bad it is laughable, but not so bad that it is funny.
The film starts out being a creepy little thriller about four kids who put some dynamite in a mailbox. Ethan is the best of the kids. He doesn’t actually want to hurt anyone. Kayleigh is still in shock because she has been molested by her father. Lenny is the stooge. He gets the job of sticking the dynamite in the mailbox. And Tommy, Kayleigh’s brother, is the evil mastermind behind the act.
After the dynamite goes off the movie fasts forward to the present where Ethan (Kutcher) learns he can change the present by going back to the past. There is no reason why he should be able to time travel but he can. Since Kayleigh (Amy Smart) is still on his mind, he wants to make her life happier.
Back and forth Ethan goes in time and each time he messes something up. It seems that fate is determined to make his life a living hell and deny his being with Kayleigh. When he ends up terribly maimed you know this movie has bottomed out.
Kutcher is such a good comic actor that it is impossible to take him seriously in this serious role. When he lopes down a dormitory hall, he looks funny. When he screws up his brow in concentration, he looks funny. Maybe we have seen too many “Punk’d” programs on MTV but you just expect him to be winking at the audience at every turn. And maybe he should have been.
Amy Smart doesn’t fare much better. She seems to be on the verge of bursting out laughing at good old Ashton. And as for romance, well Demi has nothing to worry about with this girl. She and Ashton seem like two good friends and nothing more.
Elden Henson and Ethan Suplee are part of the supporting cast and they fit right in with the bad vibes going around. Henson has some moments as the grown up Lenny, but Suplee is from another planet as Evan’s college roommate.
The movie is rated R for profanity and violence. Sadly a lot of the worst of the profanity is uttered by the kids in the film.
“The Butterfly Effect” has aspirations to be more than it is – much more. It is an uneven film that seesaws between deep drama and unintentional comedy. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. That is when the audience decides it is being punk’d. The bad thing is you had to pay good money for the humiliation.
I scored “The Butterfly Effect” a cocooned 3 out of 10.
