The Butterfly Effect
 

Ok, first, the short version. It's good!

Next, the confusing version. It's a 2 hour movie, that feels like a 3 hour movie that's really interesting the whole way through.

Finally, the full version. This movie plays with that notion that everybody has... "If I could go back in time and change that one thing... things would be way different." So, Ashton Kutcher's character has a fucked up childhood. When he's a college student, he finds a way to go back in his memories and change the way things happened. This instantly changes his current reality to the alternate world in which things REALLY happened the way they did when he 're-did' his memory.

It's cool to see something like this in the movies. I personally haven't seen any movies like this besides Run Lola Run. I say it felt like 3 hours because when you're expecting some parts to be quick flashbacks, they end up being whole chapters in the movie.. it's never what you expect it to be. Regardless of how long it feels, it's a fast paced story that offers something new at every turn. I seriously cannot understand why it was bashed by the critics.

Good premise. Good execution. Worth the $7 bucks that I didn't pay for.

I saw the preview during ROTK and I thought it looked cool. I'll probably wait for it to hit video though.

By looking at the mass amount of reviews for the movie, about 75 percent don't like it, and 25% love it. A big difference though in the two sets of feelings for the movie.......it looks like you either barely hate it, or love it to death. It looks interesting.

Is Ashton Kutcher any good? I don't like the way he acts on punk. Looks like a good movie, just don't know if I can take Ashton, for 2 hours.

The New York times said it is "staggeringly bad". Pretty harsh, but these days it seems like they don't like anything anymore.

Whenever the reviewers need to "think" during a movie to keep up they will hate it, hate to have to think and as such hate the movie. no difference here.

My gf and I really enjoyed the movie, both 9/10, the premise was very original and well executed for the most part....a few lines that im sure were meant to be serious garnered laughs from the audience with Kutcher's delivery (not his fault). The whole element of time travel was done well, leaving only a few points of possible innacuracy. Overall a good movie to see and then discuss..

It looked decent, but it has Ashton Kutcher in it. So I won't see it.

Ashton Kutcher was not bad... seriously. I dont watch his shows on TV, so I'm not as biased as all of you, but I think he was decent.

I loved the idea for the movie, but felt that Ashton Kutcher was not capable of playing the role demanded. The story was a brilliant idea and I felt had the potential to be this years 6th Sense but fell short.

I was looking forward to seeing the movie, yet the avalanche of negative reviews turned me off. But I think I'll give it a second chance, if only as a rental. Thanks for the tip!

Alright, now I have a good reason to go and see it. I was waiting to hear someone's opinion on it. I also saw the preview at the ROTK, and I thought that it looked interesting. But what suprises me is that quite a few of the critics say that its TERRRIIBBLLEE!!! So, I'm hoping that you're right Hal.

I've heard that the reviews were so bad that ashton refused to plug the movie in his interviews because he was afraid of the flack he would have recieved

You want harsh? Check out what Frank Rich did to Broadway a while back.....

Great Movie,pleaae don't listen to the reveiws.

that movie looks to be interesting.. in the way that he goes back and changes things, just to see how it turns out.. but from what you said I don't think I want to see it in the theater.. I think that i would rather see it when it comes out on dvd..

I always seem to figure out which movies to see by looking at the critics, if its a low score then I better go see it a.s.a.p., if its a high score then I should probably pass and save my $$!

I have to agree with the people who are saying to not listen to the bad reviews. My girlfriend and I thought it was great. I was just waiting for Kutcher to let me down but he did a pretty good job.
I liked the idea, a couple things in particular that I won't mention because there was no spoilers warning on this thread. No one has mentioned the great camera work or the acting by the kids. Considering the previous work of the writers/directors equals "Final Destination 2", this is a huge leap for them as far as I'm concerned.
Also, I think people might be turned off by the later trailers that were released that made it look like a very fast-violent movie, in my opinion. The earlier trailers (that were accompanied by "It's Been Awhile" by Staind, if that helps you remember) weren't as misleading and I felt captured the movie a little better.
Go see it!

The Butterfly Effect sounds like a good movie. Reminds me of Paradox's box. I know it has nothing to do with that concept but it just seem to remind me of it...

"If you could go back into time and kill your parent. Then you would have never existed and then that would mean you never actually went back to kill your parent"

i really liked the ending..no spoliers....but it was just sad and heart-warming at the same time.

Fuck the critics, really. I watched the movie and went home dizzy and my heart beating, i'm a film buff and i loved this movie, way more then i'd expected. It's smart and uses the foreshadowing-repition you'd find in a great stroy, the first scene leading to the last scene, all the scenes coming together no matter where it was shown in the film. AMAZING.; Go see it. I'm jealous that Halx posted this thread before me. And Ashton Kutcher did pull off the darker character.

Personally I thought this movie was great. Saw it on Friday with some friends. Good movie IMO, and those damn critics aren't always right.

that movie has definetaly made it's way onto my 'got to go see in the theatre' list. despite the fact that i just don't know if i can take Ashton Kutcher that serious.

when I went to see ROTK I saw the previews for this movie and thought it looked very very good..haven't seen it yet but still would like to despite all the negative reviews.

yeah critics get paid to talk shit about movies that old people wouldn't care to see. I hardly ever, if ever listen to what they say. I saw Along Came Polly this past weekend, so I missed this, but I might check it out this coming weekend.

Man, I just saw it last night. I certainly can't see why it got such negative reviews.

Perhaps not a classic, but I was satisfied with my 2 hours of entertainment...and it brings up some interesting ideas...

However, it was pretty dark and many parts were rather disturbing. Not sure if it would be a great date movie. ;)

you know when i first read the title of this thread i thought you were talking about the band ... but thats another story.


we havent got this movie over here yet but after reading your post on it halx i think i am going to enjoy it.

There were way way too many ridiculous moments for me to call this movie good. But since it was so over the top and laugh out loud proposterous (thanks to Kushter with some help from that gigantic goth roommate) it entertained. Did anyone else think Kushter was channeling Jim Carrey for a couple of the more over-the-top scenes (Spoiler: like the one where he's madly dashing through the institution hallway)?

Sparhawk - Even though I don't agree with your opinion of the movie, I did find myself wanting to laugh at the scene you mentioned. But that scene came nowhere close to Spoiler: in the life where he is a quadrapalegic and the friends are taking Kutcher to the hospital against his will and he yells "No!" and kind of jumps/falls out of the wheelchair and is trying to look commanding from down on the floor. That was funny.

Im not a huge Ashton fan at all....and I was really glad to see that a good bit of the movie focused on the kids, but all in all it was a really good movie and I'd definately see it again...the concept of the movie itself its great

Yeah...I'll go along with Halx, on this on. I mean, who knew Kutcher could actually act? But, he managed to pull some talent out of his ass, and pull this movie off quite well.

I have yet to see the NYT praise a movie... :lol:

BUT i heard it has the kill bill vol. 2 trailer .. :lol::lol::lol::lol:

All I can say is very well done.....

I enjoyed it and will probably see it again.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, didn't enjoy it even a little bit. She doesn't like thrillers, though.

And yeah, I've never liked anything that Kutcher's done to this point, but he did surprisingly well in this. I'd recommend it.

8/10

I went into the movie expecting a load of crap (Ashton Kutcher annoys me) but I was surprised. It's a quality movie and very well done. The story grabs you and doesn't let go until the end. There were some moments where I was annoyed with Ashton's goofiness but those were few and far between. I recommend seeing it even if you don't like Ashton Kutcher.

Just saw it tonight...wow. A little more than halfway through, I closed my eyes and whispered to crack--"this is a huge mindfuck." And it is...but I enjoyed it. A few parts made me cringe and turn away, but overall, I thought it was pretty damn good.

It also made me want to go back and read that Bradubury story...erm...blanking on the name. Something about thunder...

Edit: looked it up..."A Sound of Thunder."

Edit again... something else I was thinking of. Spoiler: the ending... why would he have memories of Kayleigh and Tommy with their mom? Apart from showing the viewers how things worked out, it didn't really make sense...

I definitely liked this movie. I left the theatre with a sort of eerie feeling though. Just like imagining if I had done one, just one small thing differently in my life- everything could be different. Its quite a freaky thought. Overal- great movie- glad it finally ended.

I saw this movie the first night it came out, and it sucked. Big time. This movie was by far the worst movie of the year besides Gigli. First, the acting was sub-par, and the special effects sucked. Quote the directors "Oh my god, let's shake the camera really fast, that means he's going back in time in his mind." The whole premise is ridiculous. I can change memories in my head; it doesn't mean it really happens. There has to be some willing suspension of disbelief, but this movie is too much.

1/10

The premise was maybe a little ridiculous and not explained very well, but it was generally entertaining. I thought it was pretty good in the end, even with some of the over the top outcomes, but i doubt i feel like i'd want to watch it again to get anything more out of it, which is generally my classification of a good film :D

I just got this as a netflix movie... it was entertaining. Ashton wasn't that bad to watch as an actor and it was neat to see the different things that were affected. I was also watching the Director's Cut which had a different ending than the theatrical release. IMHO the Director's Cut made much more sense at the end.

IMO, I liked Frequency better.

We saw the movie on the movie network a few weeks ago. It wasnt bad, we quite enjoyed it.,

I'm not saying it was a movie of the year candidate or anything, but for 2 hours of entertainment it was fine.

Ashtons acting didnt bother me either.

i have heard its good from family then saw it got crappy reviews..........


but i hate the punked kid so ill pass till its on HBO.....

I actually was pleasantly surprised by his acting ability. To that point I had only seen the 70's show and punked. Neither of which is a showcase for his acting talents. He did a good job.

my friends rented the dvd and we watched the director's cut. definitely an awesome movie, although my experience might be different having watched a slightly different version.

if you watch both you can easily see where they "hollwoodized" it for the general audiance. not too many people would have liked the original ending.

if you think ashton sucks for the role, i hear they were planning on giving it to Stiffler !

they offered Ashton the role of being the new Superman but he refused. then again, i guess that's not saying a whole lot considering their other casting choices ...

Just saw this movie, heres my take:

Acting: Not as bad as some of you are making it out to be. I thought it wasn't that bad, but maybe it could've been better. Kutcher exceeded my expectations; a good thing, even if the expectations were small.

Script: Some of the dialougue could've been better. I loved the story and the script though. The ending was great (and depressing), the way things turn out after his choices were really neat, and the whole thing made sense to me.

Overall: I enjoyed it a lot. I think I could watch the other version, but then I might notice some of the flaws and plot holes. Still, I didn't really notice them the first time, I definately reccommend it for a Saturday night at home.

I don't know which version I saw, but I'll explain the ending and one of you can clear this out for me

Spoiler: In the ending I saw, Kutcher goes back to the moment he was being born and chokes himself, making himself another stillbirth. As a result, everyone else lives happy normal lives.

Purely for the purpose of giving some balance to this thread, I've got to say I thought this was the worst film I've ever endured. The whole thing reminded of the South Park scene where Timmy sends his pet turkey, Gobbles, away then all kinds of sad stuff follows. Just when you think things can't get any worse they do, over and over again for what seems like an eternity.

Definitely not my idea of entertainment.

Hey, kinda like Meet the Parents!

I don't care enough about this movie to ever see it...

I dunno, think what you will of the movie, but Ashton's acting in my mind did well better than I ever ecpected it to.


/flame war on

I rented it and saw it and thought it was very very good!! And I can't stand Kutcher!

I saw the directors cut and honestly could not predict how it ended although there was a hint in the story at some point and time.

I definitely give it two thumbs up.

I think I'll go watch it again only this time the theatrical release.

shikamaru - that was the director's cut you saw. there's a few other versions.

in the theatrical release:
Spoiler: it cuts out the scene where the fortune teller says he has no lifeline, it cuts out the dialogue where his mom reveals she had 2-3 stillbirths before him (letting us know later on that all his siblings resorted to the same method of escaping the horrid loop). in the end, instead of the video of his birth, it shows the first time they met at a party. he threatens her and scares her away, thus making her end up with her mom.


there's a couple of endings:
Spoiler:
one ending has him seeing her on the street outside on a busy sidewalk. from there, they both walk away in opposite directions. in another version, he turns around and walks after her. in a final version, he walks after her, and actually says hi, asks her out, and she accepts.


so all in all, including the director's cut and the theatrical, there's 4 different endings. personally i like the director's cut the most, you can tell why they would hollywoodize it for the general audiance though.

thanks Key

The 3 endings of The Butterfly Effect
 

Did any of you know that there were 3 endings in this movie because I sure didn't! I had a friend over last week and he asked which ending I had seen. He explained that the first time he saw it he saw one ending but when he rented it on DVD it featured another?!

Apparently there are three endings: Spoiler: The one where he tells Kayley that he'll kill her parents if she doesn't keep away from him end thus ending up alone, the one where they get married and the one where he decides to travel back into his fetus body inside his mother's vomb and commit suicide by becoming a stillborn

I have no idea wether or not the DVD contains all 3 endings or not but I'd like to find out so I could see the ending nr. 2

hehe seriously people - I kid you not!

The best ending by far was when they were walking past eachother on the sidewalk and miss eachothers glances. The other endings suck noodles compared to that one.

I liked this movie a lot. Very original and interesting plot, and Kutcher's acting is ok too.

Didn't know about the other endings, I liked the one I saw (where he ends up alone and they walk past each other). The 3rd ending Nancy mentioned sounds just... weird.

I love the song that played at the end it was called Stop Crying Your Heart Out from Oasis. I thought it fit really well and the movie was great IMHO.

I just saw this movie without any biases or expectations (except knowing that a few of my friends liked it).

I must say that the first 1/3 of the movie was almost unbareable to watch. The acting was horrendous and I 'realized' that the movie was made for young teenagers as everything was ultra-dramatic and such. I found a hole in the story line about every five minutes (and I wasn't trying to!).

After this fist 1/3 of the movie passed, it finally picked up. I feel that there are still some major holes in the story, however it was plenty entertaining from there on out. I still feel that some parts were ultra-dramatic, but I enjoyed it by the end.

-T

Here's a short list of some of the holes/oddities that I can remember:
Spoiler:
-His notebooks and page markers were the exact same kind throughout his entire childhood? Did he just happen to buy the same pen, notebook, and sticky tags every year of his life? Also, they weren't beat up or anything. They just looked way too prop-ish for a major item in the movie.

-Wouldn't Tommy have been at the sister's funeral when she commited suicide? Kutcher was there in an ultra-dramatic, borderline cheesy scene and this was at the height of when Tommy would have been mad at him. Where was he?

-Why in the world did the kid stab Tommy and blame it on Kutcher when he simply told him to just cut the rope with the metal shard?

-Since when can a kid beat up a teenager, like when Tommy does at the movie theater?

I believe he was, shown shortly, and he doesn't say anything.
I'm pretty sure he didn't tell him to cut the rope, he just said something along the lines of "You'll know what to do with this."

I just viewed the movie last night, and he repedetly said "cut the cord with this," or something along those lines, because later on the kid would have said "I don't have anything to cut the cord with!" as Kutcher's memory told us.

having just watched the scene again, he does tell the kid to cut the rope, but it's small compared to what all he says about the kid making up for what happenned earlier, and now it's his day of atonement. So we are both right, he did tell the kid to cut the rope, but he made more of an emphasis on making up for the mailbox accident and the whole atonement part. So it easily concievable that the fat kid took it to mean to get back at the problem child.

I enjoyed it some critics havent a clue. similar to D Darko although not a patch on it was still quite good. Kutchner wasnt to bad imo.

Spoiler:

Quote:

Spoiler: -His notebooks and page markers were the exact same kind throughout his entire childhood? Did he just happen to buy the same pen, notebook, and sticky tags every year of his life? Also, they weren't beat up or anything. They just looked way too prop-ish for a major item in the movie.

ehh, they looked pretty ratty to me, but I don't have a clear memory of them right now. Regardless, prop-quality isn't something that really bugs me. To me, that's just nit-picking. If you read the goofs for movies you'll know what I mean. Like in Donnie Darko, it shows an Old Spice bottle which packaging made in the 90s (when the movie takes place in 1988). Or a newer blockbuster card than was available at the time. I can't see this as a plothole or something that really effects the movie. But I digress.

Quote:

Spoiler: -Wouldn't Tommy have been at the sister's funeral when she commited suicide? Kutcher was there in an ultra-dramatic, borderline cheesy scene and this was at the height of when Tommy would have been mad at him. Where was he?

The way I recall this scene, Evan shows up to the funeral, but sees Tommy there with the dad, very much distraught about the death of his sister. Rather than further screw up the situation and face a confrontation with Tommy, he leaves the funeral before anyone sees him.

Quote:

Spoiler: -Why in the world did the kid stab Tommy and blame it on Kutcher when he simply told him to just cut the rope with the metal shard?

It wasn't a mistake so much... He knew Evan wanted him to cut the rope, but after Evan had pumped him up SOOO much, he decided to REALLY get even, and stab Tommy instead. When he blamed Evan, he blamed him because Evan was the one that put him in such a f**ked up situation. He handed him the shard, he psyched him up, and let him loose under unstable mental conditions.

Quote:

Spoiler: -Since when can a kid beat up a teenager, like when Tommy does at the movie theater?

This kind of bugged me. But when I think about it, I could see it happening. Tommy was freaking psycho, and raged. He was obviously a fucked up little kid. Most people are more well-adjusted and wouldn't go BALLISITC on a stranger like Tommy did. You and I and everyone else would think twice about going balls out on a complete stranger, Tommy wouldn't. Lil bastard would have killed him without a second thought, that's how messed up his mentality was.

Anyway, that's just my two cents on it.

I was genuinely surprised at how good this film was, I never saw it at the cinima's so didn't get to see it with the awful "HAPPY SAPPY" endings. The one where he Spoiler: dies stillborn is fantastic.

Did anyone else notice that the Journals Kutcher writes in are the same as the one John Doe writes in in Se7en? Not to mention they actually watch that film during the movie.

Ashton is the posterboy for the MTV Generation, I'm glad he took such a different role and pulled it off well enough.

I can't find the deleted scenes (IE the alternate endings) on the DVD. Do I have to use my computer to view them? I tried this after my TV and couldn't find anything.

-T

Go to the deleted scenes and skip until the last 2, there're your Alternate Endings.

I don't even see a selection for "deleted scenes". I've got a 2-sided disk, one the Theatrical Cut, the other side being the Director's Cut. Each seems to have it's own menu.

Hmm, I'll do some more looking.
-T

Both SE7EN and Butteryfly Effect were released by New Line Cinema according to IMDB.

Some more trivia I pulled from there: Kutcher's character was actually going to be named Chris Treborn, a spin on Christ Reburn (move the T over one space). Instead, it's now Evan Treborn, as in Event Reborn. Cool move, I thought.