Based on an oft-quoted premise of chaos theory — that a butterfly flapping its wings in South America can cause a tidal wave in New York City — this movie gives us Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) who has inherited not only his father’s memory blackouts but also his father’s ability to retreat into his memories and change events thereby creating an alternate reality. While this film deals superficially with the concept of time, memory, and cause and effect it never manages to transcend the filmmakers’ fascination with their lead performer’s beauty.
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Through a series of absolutely horrible events (being forced to act in a kiddie porn film, causing the accidental death of a woman and her child, and the live-burning death of his pet dog), most of which he blacks out, Evan is shaped into a particular person. As part of his psychology project on the nature of memory Evan begins exploring his journals and his past. Reconnecting with Kayleigh Miller (Amy Smart) brings up memories that are too painful for the emotionally-broken young woman to handle; their brief meeting precipitates Kayleigh’s suicide.
In his grief, Evan discovers that he can go back in time and change events he has written about in his journals. Through a series of alternate universes which illustrate the butterfly effect (change one event in a series of events and everything down the timeline is changed) Evan realizes that his blackouts are events that he has already gone back an altered, thus bringing us to the central problem with any movie that deals with time travel: events in the past have already been changed by an actor from the future.
This movie has been savaged by reviewers and to a certain extent that criticism is warranted. The filmmakers have made the tragedies in Evan’s life beyond horrible and the audience is forced to return to them again and again and again as Evan tries to right all the wrongs of his past. There are elements of the film that transcend the ordinary; the way Kayleigh’s father’s house reflects her mental state is one example.
Kutcher manages to carry off a dramatic role that is far removed from Michael Kelso but he never quite fully realizes Evan as a three-dimensional character. Good performances from the supporting cast balancing out the pain of Evan’s traumatic past merit this movie at 2 out of five.
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