butterfly effect 1 movie review

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Chaos theory teaches us that small events can have enormous consequences. An opening title informs us that butterfly flapping its wings in Asia could result in a hurricane halfway around the world. Yes, although given the number of butterflies and the determination with which they flap their little wings, isn't it extraordinary how rarely that happens? "The Butterfly Effect" applies this theory to the lives of four children whose early lives are marred by tragedy. When one of them finds that he can go back in time and make changes, he tries to improve the present by altering the past.

The characters as young adults are played by Ashton Kutcher , as Evan, a college psych major; Amy Smart and William Lee Scott as Kayleigh and Tommy, a brother and sister with a pedophile father; and Elden Henson as Lenny, their friend. The story opens in childhood, with little Evan seriously weird. His drawings at kindergarten are sick and twisted (and also, although nobody ever mentions it, improbably good for a child). He has blackouts, grabs kitchen knives, frightens his mother ( Melora Walters ), becomes a suitable case for treatment.

A shrink suggests that he keep a daily journal. This he does, although apparently neither the shrink nor the mother ever read it, or their attention might have been snagged by entries about how Mr. Miller ( Eric Stoltz ), father of Kayleigh and Tommy, forced them all to act in kiddie porn movies. Evan hangs onto the journals, and one day while reading an old one at school he's jerked back into the past and experiences a previously buried memory.

One thing he'd always done, after moving from the old neighborhood, was to promise Kayleigh "I'll come back for you." (This promise is made with handwriting as precocious as his drawing skills.) The flashbacks give him a chance to do that, and eventually he figures out that by reading a journal entry, he can return to that page in his life and relive it. The only problem is, he then returns to a present that is different than the one he departed from -- because his actions have changed everything that happened since.

This is a premise not unknown to science fiction, where one famous story has a time-traveler stepping on a cockroach millions of years ago and wiping out humanity. The remarkable thing about the changes in "The Butterfly Effect" is that they're so precisely aimed: They apparently affect only the characters in the movie. From one reality to the next, Kayleigh goes from sorority girl to hooker, Evan zaps from intellectual to frat boy to prisoner, and poor Lenny spends some time as Kayleigh's boyfriend and more time as a hopeless mental patient.

Do their lives have no effect on the wider world? Apparently not. External reality remains the same, apart from minute adjustments to college and prison enrollment statistics. But it's unfair to bring such logic to bear on the story, which doesn't want to really study the butterfly effect, but simply to exploit a device to jerk the characters through a series of startling life changes. Strange, that Evan can remember everything that happened in the alternate lifetimes, even though by the theory of the movie, once he changes something, it didn't happen.

Ashton Kutcher has become a target lately; the gossip press can't forgive him for dating Demi Moore , although that's a thing many sensible young men dream of doing. He was allegedly fired from a recent film after the director told him that he needed acting lessons. Can he act? He can certainly do everything that's required in "The Butterfly Effect." He plays a convincing kid in his early 20s, treating each new reality with a straightforward realism when most actors would be tempted to hyperventilate under the circumstances.

The plot provides a showcase for acting talent, since the actors have to play characters who go through wild swings (even Evan's mom has a wild ride between good health and death's door).

And there's a certain grim humor in the way the movie illustrates the truth that you can make plans, but you can't make results. Some of the futures Even returns to are so seriously wrong from his point of view that he's lucky he doesn't just disappear from the picture, having been killed at 15, say, because of his meddling.

I enjoyed "The Butterfly Effect," up to a point. That point was reached too long before the end of the movie. There's so much flashing forward and backward, so many spins of fate, so many chapters in the journals, that after awhile I felt that I, as well as time, was being jerked around.

Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, the co-writers and directors, also collaborated on " Final Destination 2 " (2003), another film in which fate works in mysterious way, its ironies to reveal. I gave that half of a star, so "The Butterfly Effect" is five times better. And outside, the wind is rising ...

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Rated R for violence, sexual content, language and brief drug use

113 minutes

Ashton Kutcher as Evan Treborn

Amy Smart as Kayleigh Miller

William Lee Scott as Tommy Miller

Elden Henson as Lenny Kagan

Eric Stoltz as George Miller

Melora Walters as Andrea Treborn

Written and directed by

J. MacKye Gruber

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The butterfly effect.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 16 Reviews
Kids Say 22 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

By Nell Minow , based on child development research. How do we rate?

Dark sci-fi thriller has lots of violence, sex, language.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 18+?

In one of the alternate realities explored by the lead character, the female lea

Constant profanity used by adults, tweens, and teens. "F--k," "s--t," "ass," "pu

Female and male nudity, full frontal. Talk of sex, and various sex acts. College

Graphic violence, violent situations, disturbing scenes. (Warning: Some spoilers

Any Positive Content?

Film explores how the choices and decisions we make in life impact not only our

Instead of trying to work through and overcome horrific childhood trauma, charac

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

In one of the alternate realities explored by the lead character, the female lead is a drug addict and prostitute. Lead character's roommate shown smoking out of a giant bong. Tweens and adults smoke cigarettes. Woman shown dying in a hospital due to smoking. A pedophile father drinks whiskey while attempting to film his daughter and her friend in a state of undress. College drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Constant profanity used by adults, tweens, and teens. "F--k," "s--t," "ass," "puss out." "F--got" used by tween. In a scene with white supremacists in a prison cell, lead character uses the racial slurs "s--ck," the "N" word.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Female and male nudity, full frontal. Talk of sex, and various sex acts. College student often walks in on his roommate having sex with his girlfriend. Post-coital sex talk. Tweens shown looking at pornographic magazines. Lead character brings a girl back to his dorm room; they start to engage in foreplay but stop when lead character's issues with blacking out occur once again.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Graphic violence, violent situations, disturbing scenes. ( Warning: Some spoilers.) A powerful firecracker placed in a mailbox by tweens as a prank results, in one reality, in the death of a mother and baby; in another instance, in the lead character losing his hands, forearms. Suicide, attempted suicide. A dog is tied up in a sack, covered with lighter fluid, set on fire, and killed by a sadistic tween. A young man is beaten to death with a baseball bat. Child molestation strongly implied -- not shown, but aftermath discussed by victims years later. Prison rape implied. Lead character, serving time in prison, is on the verge of performing oral sex on two inmates before he stabs them. A young man is beaten. A lead character is shown as a tween killing another lead character with a large piece of scrap metal. A father with mental illness attacks his son in the mental hospital, choking him. Bullying -- frat boys pick on a goth punk in a bar; the goth punk retaliates by shooting a cue ball from the pool table at them, then breaking off the stick of his pool cue and threatening them. Fraternity pledges shown getting hazed. A teacher shows a mother a drawing her young son made of the boy killing his father with a knife; he is shortly after shown in the kitchen holding a large knife. A diner waitress is sexually harassed by a customer, who grabs her rear end.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Film explores how the choices and decisions we make in life impact not only our lives, but the lives of those around us. The movie seems to suggest in some ways that the decency, kindness, and moral compass of individuals is determined primarily by external factors and circumstances rather than choices made from within. Explores extremely dark subject matter such as incest, child molestation, prison rape, suicide, animal cruelty, bullying, and mental illness.

Positive Role Models

Instead of trying to work through and overcome horrific childhood trauma, characters are forever scarred by them; the removal of these traumas results in these characters being -- if not always kinder and more decent -- at least seemingly more well-adjusted.

Parents need to know that The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 sci-fi thriller in which Ashton Kutcher plays a college student who can relive the past and attempt to change it for the better. The movie doesn't shy away from traumatic events and dark subject matter. There are scenes involving child molestation, prison rape, animal cruelty (a dog tied up inside a sack and set on fire and killed), accidental murder, suicide, drug addiction, mental illness, and prostitution. One the characters is beaten to death with a baseball bat. In another scene, one tween kills another tween by stabbing him with a large piece of scrap metal. While serving time in prison, the lead character, on the verge of performing oral sex on two inmates, stabs them both in the groin. It has male and female nudity, talk of sex, and sex acts; a college student tends to walk into his dorm room while his roommate is having sex with his girlfriend. Adults, tweens, and children frequently curse, including "f--k." Homophobic and racial slurs are used. This fearlessness in terms of not shying away from subject matter that is difficult and troubling sometimes overshadows the deeper points the movie is trying to make about "the butterfly effect," "chaos theory," and how events and decisions large and small can play huge roles in determining the kind of people individuals turn out to be. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (16)
Kids say (22)

Based on 16 parent reviews

You Can’t Play God

What's the story.

In THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, Evan ( Ashton Kutcher ) is a tortured soul given to blackouts as a child. Now in college, as his memories begin to return, Evan regrets not having been able to save Kayleigh ( Amy Smart ), the girl he loved, from her abusive father. He realizes that he can go back in time and change the direction of events, but each time he does he makes things worse. Evan goes back to the moment in which he agreed to take his clothes off for a child porn video made by Kayleigh's father ( Eric Stoltz ). Instead of saying no or running away or calling the police, 7-year-old Evan's second-chance decision is to explain to Kayleigh's father in the words of his adult persona that her father shouldn't destroy her life. Somehow, this instantly persuades him to stop molesting her. Then college-age Evan, back in the present but of course remembering the original reality, is transformed from cool guy to frat boy, with Kayleigh transformed from suicidal waitress to happy sorority girl. But when 7-year-old Evan showed Kayleigh's father the error of his ways, he forgot about Kayleigh's brother, who now, in scenario number 2, as the recipient of all of the abuse in the family, is over-protective of his sister. Disaster ensues and Evan has to find a way to go back again to try to make things work out better.

Is It Any Good?

This movie is pretentious. The title comes from the idea, here attributed to "chaos theory," that the flap of a butterfly's wing can produce a typhoon half a world away. It's an irresistibly intriguing notion -- all of us have thought about what would happen if we could go back in time and make a different choice. But this movie's plot lacks imagination, insight, and even believability.

Evan's time travels include an assortment of every possible form of hideous crime and abuse, including animal torture, child molestation, the death of an infant, prison rape, and drug addiction, all unforgivably thrown in for shock value and none with any shred of dramatic legitimacy. And wherever he is, psychology teacher's pet, half-hearted participant in fraternity hazing, confined to prison, or confined to a wheelchair, Kutcher's acting is not up to the challenge of making even a nosebleed believable.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the subject matter of the movie. How did the movie address the many difficult topics it presented?

What does the movie seem to be saying about the role that events, decisions, and circumstances have on shaping the kinds of people we turn out to be? Does the film adequately address the role individuals have in overcoming traumatic situations and taking charge of their own destinies? Why or why not?

This movie seems to garner extreme reactions from viewers. Some really love it, and others really hate it. Why do you think that's the case? What are some other examples of movies that provoke these types of polarizing reactions?

Movie Details

In theaters : January 22, 2004
On DVD or streaming : July 6, 2004
Cast : Amy Smart , Eric Stoltz
Director : Eric Bress
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : New Line
Genre : Thriller
Run time : 113 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : violence, sexual content, language and brief drug use
Last updated : November 23, 2023

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DVD & Streaming

The Butterfly Effect

Drama , Horror , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

Ashton Kutcher as Evan; Amy Smart as Kayleigh; Elden Henson as Lenny; William Lee Scott as Tommy; Eric Stoltz as Mr. Miller; John Patrick Amedori as Evan at 13 years old; Irene Gorovaia as Kayleigh at 13; Logan Lerman as Evan at 7; Sarah Widdows as Kayleigh at 7

Home Release Date

Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber

Distributor

New Line Cinema

Movie Review

Our lives form a skein of action and reaction, cause and effect. By the time we can see the shape our intertwined deeds have taken, it’s often too late for change. Leaving God out of the picture, all we can do is keep adding days, hoping to cover the bad areas and accentuate the good. But suppose it wasn’t like that; suppose you could shift, ever so slightly, the most foundational moments of your early life. What would happen?

Evan has fugues, mysterious blackouts during which he behaves normally but after he can’t remember anything. During the most stressful moments of his life his consciousness blinks out like a bad bulb. His father experienced the same thing before going irreparably insane and being committed to an institution. Though doctors claim Evan hasn’t inherited his father’s lunacy, they urge him to begin keeping journals which might jog his memory. Evan never really reads what he has written, which is no surprise, given what some of those entries contain. He and Kayleigh, his life-long love, being molested by her father, for example. Or Kayleigh’s brother, Tommy, burning a pet dog alive. Or his friend, Lenny, being reduced to a shambling shell after a senseless prank took the life of a newborn child.

One day, though, a college-age Evan decides to cracks the cover of his journals and the inexplicable happens: He is bodily transported into those repressed memories and learns that he can alter them at will.

His discovery couldn’t have come at a better time. Emotionally distraught over her molestation, Kayleigh commits suicide. Travelling back to the day of the incident, Evan heads off the incident. But when he awakens, he learns his tinkering with the past has radically impacted the present. No longer an emotionally sterile wreck, Kayleigh has blossomed into a vibrant, utterly gorgeous woman who can’t wait to marry him. Evan himself has become a dashingly handsome fraternity prep. Tommy, though, has transformed into a homicidal maniac who is extremely possessive of his sister and in one startlingly violent moment, Evan’s idyllic world shatters.

He knows what he has to do—go back again. But each tug at the skein changes those Evan loves more than he could have imagined.

Positive Elements

Evan’s yearning to have his dad involved in his life testifies to the importance of a father’s role. His constant trips through time are motivated by unadulterated, sacrificial love for Kayleigh and a desire to provide a good life for her. “No one could possibly love anyone as much as I love you,” he tells her, and his actions largely back up the statement.

Additionally, Evan wisely urges Tommy’s dad to discipline him in order to curb the boy’s violent proclivities. A Christian jailbird shares his food with an incarcerated Evan after he has been harassed by gang members.

Spiritual Elements

During a funeral a priest intones, “The Lord make His face to shine upon him and give him peace.” A pious penitentiary inmate tells Evan that “Jesus Himself couldn’t make me stand up to the [Aryan] Brotherhood.” That changes when Evan tells him God has been speaking to him through dreams and then travels back in time to inflict stigmata-like wounds on his hands. When Evan visits his father in the past, his dad says, “You can’t play God, son.” Tommy becomes a kind Christian during one alternate reality.

Sexual Content

Kayleigh’s father forces the prepubescent Evan and Kayleigh to strip for his camera. Though the directors judiciously avoid explicit nudity, the scene is still nausea-inducing. It doesn’t help that it’s repeated multiple times with an adult Evan travelling back to try to correct the heinous sin.

It always seems that Evan is walking in on his roommates tossing the sheets with their squeezes, often accompanied by orgasmic moaning and partial breast nudity. A man gropes Kayleigh when she is working at a diner. Women in skimpy lingerie prance around a sorority and one girl steps out of a shower clad in nothing but water (full-frontal nudity is seen onscreen). A post-coital shot has Evan and Kayleigh lying in bed discussing multiple orgasms. Evan offers to perform fellatio on two Aryan prisoners before stabbing one in the crotch with gory results. Kayleigh becomes a prostitute in one potential world, and makes crude comments about promiscuity and female arousal.

When a woman finds Evan’s journals hidden beneath his bunk, she quips, “Most guys keep porn under their beds.” Pornographic magazines make a couple of appearances, but without revealing their prurient contents. The same can’t be said for the many indiscreet posters that adorn college dorm rooms. There are crude and vulgar jokes and slang.

Violent Content

Very explicit, agonizingly brutal and usually bloody. And Evan’s habit of flitting back and forth between the present and the past insures that some scenes appear more than once. Evan’s dad tries to strangle him and is accidentally killed during a scuffle with asylum guards (a blow shatters his skull, which bleeds out over the floor). While under hypnosis, Evan violently writhes and bleeds profusely from his nose. In fact, that occurs every time Evan returns from the past as his brain rapidly grows, accommodating itself to a host of new memories.

A young Kayleigh alludes to the fact that her father beats her and flashes an ugly bruise on her arm. Young Tommy shoves Evan and attacks a man at a movie theater. A truly horrible moment comes when Tommy pummels Evan and Kayleigh with a plank as they try to stop him from immolating a live dog bound in a bag. A man threatens boisterous frat boys at a bar with a broken pool cue. A stunt involving a stick of dynamite stuck in a mailbox claims the life of an infant when his mother attempts to retrieve her mail. A replaying of variants of that instant includes images of a young boy’s arms blowing off and Kayleigh being killed.

Evan beats Tommy to death with a blunt object in one reality. Lenny stabs him with sharp scrap metal in another. Prisoners roughly seize Evan by the genitals before beating him to the ground. A young Evan impales his hands on wire spindles. A sanguine drawing shows a knife murderer standing over his butchered victims.

Crude or Profane Language

Over 50 uses of the f-word. Other profanities and crudities raise the count above 100. What makes those obscenities all the more problematic is the fact that many of them are voiced by children. Jesus’ name is abused about four times and God’s over 15 times. Crude racial slang targets African Americans, Hispanics and Jews.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Kayleigh’s dad swallows liquor. Evan’s college roommate takes hits off a bong. Patrons sip brews at a bar. Tommy, Lenny, Kayleigh and Evan smoke cigarettes when they’re teenagers, and that experience with tobacco carries into Kayleigh’s adult life. “I’ve quit like a hundred times,” she tells Evan while puffing away. When Evan tries to explain his time travelling experiences to a co-ed, she thinks he’s stoked on drugs. Kayleigh becomes a heroin addict during one of Evan’s trips.

Other Negative Elements

Evan steals a keycard to gain access to restricted areas of a mental institution. One very disturbing scene features a crippled man trying to drown himself in a bathtub.

In 1993, Jurassic Park introduced moviegoers to a scientific hypothesis called “Chaos Theory.” The Butterfly Effect takes that idea—that seemingly inconsequential actions can have huge, unforeseen effects—and makes it its narrative backbone. Not content to stop there, co-directors and screenwriters Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber spliced in wildly disparate plot elements. Imagine combining the psychic bewitchery of Stephen King’s Firestarter with Dennis Lehane’s delusional mind-trip Shutter Island and the classic 1952 time-travel story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury.

You might not think that a movie with so many, well, unique influences could actually work on a story level. And, indeed, The Butterfly Effect does have some holes—huge ones, in fact—but it’s kept moving fast enough and cleverly enough that most audiences won’t notice until they’re well out of the theater.

What you can’t help noticing is this R-rated feature’s content. And there it fails miserably. The brutality in Evan’s life and adventures is stupefyingly vicious. (It’s only somewhat more understandable when you realize the film’s creators penned the pornographically violent Final Destination 2 .) I sincerely wish Bress and Gruber had thought through the “butterfly effect” of young viewers absorbing their ruthless vision as much as they tried to process each of the film’s many twists and turns.

Loren Eaton

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The Butterfly Effect Reviews

This film is so gut-wrenchingly dark and twisted I’d also call it a horror movie, with virtually no respite once its core premise swings into gear.

Full Review | May 21, 2024

Wildly uneven and not exactly high-quality entertainment, The Butterfly Effect has, nonetheless, weirdly turned out to be strangely memorable, especially for certain generation of moviegoers.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 12, 2022

The Butterfly Effect looks at the power of memory, the repercussions of events from our past that bleed into the present.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 5, 2019

...an above-average time travel picture that ultimately utilizes (and exploits) its out-there premise quite nicely.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 16, 2016

The movie tries to be too visceral, and it just comes out as being repugnant

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 17, 2016

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. So very bad.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Dec 28, 2010

It's a pretty dumb and utterly pretentious jumbled drama that is never sure what it's trying to say, or what in fact it means.

Full Review | Apr 29, 2009

Tries hard to be affecting and mind-blowing, and sometimes it comes close.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 31, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 1, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 6, 2005

More like "The Gag Reflex."

Full Review | Original Score: D- | Nov 18, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 5, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 2, 2005

this is exactly the sort of movie I like to see.

Full Review | Jan 16, 2005

Assez bien dans l'ensemble, mais la fascinante prmise n'est jamais vraiment exploit sa hauteur.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Dec 16, 2004

Despite a fairly upbeat ending, the ugly images dominate the film with the time/reality plot a bloody nose afterthought.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Oct 14, 2004

Cool theories...don't necessarily guarantee good stories...[even if Ashton Kutcher] is repeatedly punk'd by the space-time continuum.

Full Review | Sep 24, 2004

Walks a super-thin line between horrific believability and hilarious unbelievability.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 10, 2004

One of the most thoughtful films of 2004.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jul 16, 2004

Dumb fun, thy name is Ashton.

Full Review | Jul 5, 2004

10 Best Movies about the Butterfly Effect | TheReviewGeek Recommends

Ever heard of the butterfly effect? It’s an interesting concept that even a small change in the past can create a big impact in the future. Filmmakers love exploring this in movies, where characters muddle with time and change a few things here and there, only to deal with unexpected results later on.

In this article, we’ve listed down some awesome movies that zoom in on the butterfly effect, spanning both different times and genres.

The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Let’s begin the list with the most obvious pick- the butterfly effect. In the movie, Ashton Kutcher plays the role of Evan Treborn, a young man who, almost all his life, has been suffering from serious memory gaps and lapses.

While enrolled in university, Evan learned that he could recreate specific events by rereading his old notebooks and concentrating on particular memories. Evan tries to alter his present by making positive shifts in his history, not knowing that every change will trigger a cascade of unanticipated events, even his death.

Run Lola Run (1998)

In the movie, three different “what if” situations play out, each relating to a minor adjustment to Lola’s behavior. The plot revolves around Franka Potente’s Lola getting a telephone call from Moritz Bleibtreu’s Manni, a man who has misplaced a bag with a boatload of money.

If Manni does not fetch the required funds within 20 minutes, she’ll have to face the wrath of a deadly gangster. In all three of the scenarios. Twenty minutes is all Lola needs to find her way around Berlin and get the cash she needs.

Frequency (2000)

Jim Caviezel’s John Sullivan and Dennis Quaid’s Frank Sullivan serve as the film’s main protagonists. On the day of an exceptionally rare aurora borealis, John finds his dad’s antique ham radio and manages to make contact with Frank, who has been using the same device to communicate from 1969 to 30 years in the past.

The father and son team up and try to stop a slew of unfortunate events from happening in Frank’s reality, but their efforts to alter history end up changing the present in ways they couldn’t have imagined.

Looper (2012)

Looper ranks among the best films that deal with time travel and the butterfly effect. In the year 2044, time travel has been made possible, but it’s forbidden and only be accessed illegally. Criminal gangs use “loopers,” who make a living off killing people who are sent from the future.

T he protagonist, Joe, played by Joseph Gordon-Levit, is also a looper whose life takes a unique turn when his own older self is sent to the past to be dealt with. The best thing about this film is that we get to see the intense cat-and-mouse chase between the same people (in this context, young and old Joe) from different realities.

Next (2007)

Nic Cage plays the role of Cris Johnson, a Las Vegas street performer, albeit he has a special talent that allows him to see the events that will take place two years in the future. Thanks to this talent, he can stay safe in the here and now.

As news of Cris’s talents spreads, law enforcement hires him to thwart a terrorist plot that involves a stolen nuclear weapon. Though without using the expression “butterfly effect,” the movie tackles the same cause-and-effect issues. Cris’s power to see the future makes him alter events, which creates tones of trouble for him down the road.

Source Code (2011)

Source Code is Jake Gyllenhaal’s most underrated film so far. In this film, Captain Colter Stevens finds himself on a Chicago train without a clue of how he got there, and that too in someone else’s body. A strange woman named Christin insists he’s Sean, a man he doesn’t know.

Before Colter can make sense of any of it, the train blows up, taking everyone with it. This time, Colter wakes up in a strange capsule and learns that he’s part of a military project, the Source Code, which lets him relive the last eight minutes of a dead person’s life.

The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006)

In the movie, Nick Larson, played by Eric Lively, stumbles upon a unique power, just like Ashton Kutcher’s Treborn. By reading his late girlfriend Julie’s journal, Nick can time travel.

At first, Nick uses this power to fix things in his life and make his relationships better, but as he messes with the past, Nick sets off a chain of unexpected and riskier consequences. The film wasn’t widely received and ended up becoming a box office bomb, but still, it is an entertaining one-time watch.

Le Battement d’ailes du Papillon (2001)

Le Battement d’ailes du Papillon is no doubt one of the most loved French rom-coms out there. The movie follows multiple people in Paris throughout a single day. Each person is caught up in seemingly random and everyday happenings.

The plot knits together their stories and explores how their lives connect. At the heart of it all is a chance meeting between Irene and Younes, where Irene finds a lost earring in a café, and Younes, a musician, lends a hand in finding its owner.

This tiny moment sparks a series of events that ripple through the lives of other characters—a hairdresser, a married couple, a tourist, and more.

Project Almanac (2015)

Critics have called it one of the most ambitious and brilliant indie films ever made. The movie tracks David Raskin, a smart high schooler, and his friends. David stumbles upon his dad’s secret lab in the basement, uncovering blueprints for a time-travel machine.

With his friends’ help—Quinn, Christina Raskin, Adam Le, and Sarah Nathad, David puts together the time machine. Next thing you know, they start to travel to various points in time to become rich, not even thinking for a second that it’ll bring unintended surprises.

Mirage (2018)

The movie centers on Vera Roy, leading a content life in 1989 with her husband David and their daughter Gloria. One stormy day, Vera stumbles upon a time portal linking her to the year 2016, where a boy named Nico lives in her house. Using this strange link, Vera tries to avert a tragic incident in 1989.

Little does she know her actions will end up disrupting timelines. In simple terms, using time travel, Mirage tackles the moral and psychological ramifications of changing the past while keeping the butterfly effect magic alive.

And there you have it, the 10 best movies about the Butterfly Effect . Did your favorite make the cut? We want to hear from you! Drop your thoughts in the comments below.

1 thought on “10 Best Movies about the Butterfly Effect | TheReviewGeek Recommends”

In Next, Chris Johnson (Cage) can see 2 minutes into his future. If he is going to get hit by a bus, he senses it 2 minutes ahead and can change the outcome.

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What was the original ending and why was it changed?

The Butterfly Effect (2004) has multiple and very different endings. Specifically there appears to be two factors on the main character's decision:

Save his girlfriend's life
Save his girlfriend's life and mother's life.

I found it weird that the first ending would not compromise the other (it's like a happy ending where the viewer doesn't know what happened to his mother or to the main character's "gift")

After checking on the web and discussing with others I am not sure which was the original intended ending .

Is it reported anywhere why the need to dramatically change the ending?

plot-explanation
alternate-version
the-butterfly-effect

Given the premise - that tiny, seemingly unrelated occurrences can have ripple effects throughout our reality, doesn't it make sense that there would be multiple possible outcomes? – PoloHoleSet Commented Nov 9, 2016 at 21:24

2 Answers 2

There are 4 different endings :

Theatrical Ending:

Evan travels back to the birthday party where he first meets Kayleigh and whispers to her "I hate you and if you ever come near me again I'll kill you and your whole damn family." Kayleigh runs away crying. After a montage of his memories disintegrating, Evan returns to present day in the dorm room with Lenny, and the two of them burn all of Evan's journals. Eight years pass. One day, Evan and Kayleigh (Amy Smart) are walking down a street, going in opposite directions. When they pass each other, they seem to recognize each other for a second but keep walking away.

Watch Theatrical Ending on YouTube

Alternate Ending 1:

Same as Theatrical Ending , only Evan turns and follows Kayleigh.

Watch Alternate Ending 1 on YouTube

Alternate Ending 2:

Same as Alternate Ending 1 only Evan and Kayleigh talk to each other.

Watch Alternate Ending 2 on YouTube

Director's Cut:

At the end, while Evan has barricaded himself in the office, he starts playing a home movie his father made just as his mother was giving birth to him. Evan travels back into his mother's womb and strangles himself with the umbilical cord. Said to be the original ending but, because it did poorly with the screening audience, the theatrical ending was chosen for cinema release.

The Director's Cut has quite a few more additional scenes.

Detailed comparison between Theatrical and Director's Cut

Watch Director's Cut Below:

1 Wow, never knew about the directors cut ending (well, didn't know 2 and 3 either, but those aren't that spectacular). That's amazing, thanks for the info. – Napoleon Wilson Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 12:24
Great answer! Didn't know so many endings existed and you've got them nicely covered with images... +1 – Roshnal Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 13:47
do you know which of these was the original script? – quinestor Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 15:44
4 weird, i've only seen the director's cut, not the theatrical. – DForck42 Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 19:39
4 @quinestor - Did you overlook the last sentence in the Director's Cut quote? The DC actually has a lot more than just a different ending. You also learn that Evan inherited his "ability" from his father, and that his mother had 2 miscarriages before him, implying that those children went through something similar as Evan and eventually made to the same decision: not to get born in the first place. – Oliver_C Commented Nov 28, 2012 at 10:34

I don't quite get what you meant by,

Anyway, the way I understood is this:

The original ending was the ending which Evan was in a psychiatric hospital- he is in a really depressed state as he is fully aware that it is he who killed his girlfriend, Kayleigh. What the doctor said was true- Evan was making alternate realities in his mind to escape his guilt about killing her (he throwed the dynamite at her father, but it landed beneath her).

But then he steals the earliest home-movie tape in which he had met Kayleigh for the the first time in his life (the real one)- at a party. He then "travels" into the scene (for real) and then blames Kayleigh (says he hates her, etc, etc.), thus avoiding ever meeting her and playing with her- and the dynamite scene and child abuse (by her father) would never have happened in the first place. And consequently, Evan would not be crazy, his other friends would be good in life, and he would have led a normal college life.

This is not based on real facts, but is the way I interpreted the movie and understood it.

hey thanks!. What I meant with the compromise is that in one ending it seems that Evan's ultimate sacrifice seems completely necesary to save all, while in the other: the one you post, only sacrificing his relationship seems necesary. Was this ending the one shown in the movie theaters? – quinestor Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 8:08
OK :). But what exactly was the surroundings of "...ultimate sacrifice seems necessary to save all..." part? Can't remember. And I can't help you with what was shown in movie theaters- I only watched it from my PC. – Roshnal Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 9:39
Oh i meant that he kills himself while in the fetus because him being alive destroy his mother and girlfriend's lives. While in the other ending him being alive is only a problem if he ends up having a relationship with his GF – quinestor Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 11:03
I've not seen the scene you told (the one where he's killing himself in his mother's womb). But the other answer (by Oliver C) states that its the director's cut . He has a nice summary of endings... – Roshnal Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 13:46

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‘The Butterfly Effect’ 20 Years Later: Exploring the Dark Side of Time Travel

From the infamous grandfather paradox to accidentally creating a timeline where Ned Flanders rules the world, there’s an element of existential horror to every single time travel story. However, it seems that most filmmakers prefer to focus on the exciting adventure aspects of these mind-bending yarns, as very few films choose to explore the terrifying personal ramifications of going back in time to mess with events in your own life.

Obviously, there are several exceptions to this “rule,” and one of the most entertaining just happens to be Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber’s sci-fi thriller The Butterfly Effect , an under-appreciated relic of the 2000s that I think has aged into a much better movie than most folks give it credit for. And now that we have two decades of hindsight regarding time travel cinema, I’d like to take a look back on this weird little flick and dive into why it might also appeal to horror fans.

The film that became The Butterfly Effect began its journey to the big screen as a highly-sought-after spec script that just couldn’t secure enough funding to be brought to life. It was only when Bress and Gruber made a name for themselves by writing Final Destination 2 that they managed to get a hold of Ashton Kutcher to produce and star in their long-gestating project, leading to the flick’s release in early 2004.

In the finished film, we follow Kutcher as Evan Treborn, a troubled young man who experienced a series of mysterious blackouts when he was growing up. He eventually discovers that these blackouts were the result of his ability to travel back in time and occupy his own consciousness in the past, with this discovery leading Evan to use his powers to improve his depressing present. Naturally, this temporal meddling has unforeseen consequences, and Evan soon finds himself trapped in increasingly dire timelines as he faces the titular Butterfly Effect .

SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?

Over the years, The Butterfly Effect has garnered a reputation as “ Donnie Darko for frat bros,” with a lot of cinephiles agreeing that it’s a deeply silly and excessively morbid movie that bites off more than it can chew when it comes to sci-fi shenanigans. While I can’t exactly argue that this film is an unsung masterpiece, I think folks have been way too hard on what was always meant to be just an entertaining midnight movie.

The overall plot may not stand on its own where logic is concerned (though I guess you could say the same for pretty much all time-travel flicks), but you’ve got to admit that the film does a great job of using its sci-fi elements as an excuse to explore deeply disturbing subject matter as it tells a story about coming to terms with trauma. Sure, some of these situations feel like they were ripped straight out of a soap-opera, but the exaggerated emotional stakes give the characters a chance to shine as they deal with sociopathic children, abusive parents and even dead babies.

And regardless of what you think about his career before and after Butterfly Effect , there’s no denying that Kutcher is completely dedicated to his role here. The actor supposedly conducted months of research into both psychopathology and chaos theory in order to bring the troubled Evan to life, and while not all that effort can be appreciated on-screen, you can certainly tell that he was really psyched to a part of this project.

Lastly, while this doesn’t necessarily reflect the overall quality of the movie, I also really appreciate the flick’s overall vibe . I mean, The Butterfly Effect contains some quintessential early-2000s atmosphere, with the movie being part of the so-called movement that the internet is now referring to as “nu-metal cinema.” The saturated colors and period-appropriate outfits and soundtrack may be unintentional quirks of the era, but they also make the experience feel like a snapshot of a slightly more stylish (and admittedly corny) moment in film history – which I think is quite fitting for a time travel flick.

AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?

The Butterfly Effect may not contain any out-right jump-scares or imagery traditionally associated with the horror genre, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t tackle some downright scary ideas . From forcing the protagonist to face a sociopath hell-bent on burning his dog to death to having characters be brutally murdered, there’s no shortage of dark moments here.

Sure, the movie is regrettably blunt when dealing with some of its disturbing subject matter (like the surprisingly insensitive subplot about sexual assault in prison and the entire character of Katie’s pedophile dad), but I appreciate that the filmmakers were willing to explore the logical extremes of their intriguing premise. Hell, the movie even managed to squeeze in a little bit of body horror once Kutcher’s temporal shenanigans result in a timeline where his character loses both arms after trying to prevent a childhood tragedy.

However, one of the most horrific aspects of the film didn’t actually make it to the theatrical release, as the studio originally opted to change Bress and Gruber’s original ending due to its uncomfortable implications. And while I have some reservations about the director’s cut (mostly due to it feeling like It’s a Wonderful Life in reverse), I’d argue that it’s the more interesting version of the film and worth seeking out if you’ve only ever seen the theatrical cut.

The Butterfly Effect is far from a perfect film, suffering from inconsistent time-travel logic and more than a few groan-worthy plot contrivances, but I think it’s still a really great time if you can set logic aside and simply enjoy the ride. While I understand that some viewers may be put off by the more edgy and mean-spirited elements of the flick, I think this blast from the past is just as effective today as it was back in ’04.

There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.

Born Brazilian, raised Canadian, Luiz is a writer and Film student that spends most of his time watching movies and subsequently complaining about them.

Brand Awareness: Why Horror Franchises Have Trouble Evolving

Bemoaning how Hollywood treats its franchises these days is quite the cliche. So much so that it’s become a favorite pastime for movie geeks all over the world. It’s even more “basic” to spill ink about the nostalgia treadmill that no studio exec can resist jumping on with a glee usually reserved for kids in candy stores. Specifically, they seem to have an aversion towards moving forward and sowing new ideas on grounds fans deem oh-so sacred. And yet, here we are on the precipice of yet another vaunted horror franchise reaching into the past to chart its creative future.

Neve Campbell’s recent comments about Scream’s seventh installment compared it to Halloween’s 2018 recipe. The irony is David Gordon Green’s film owes a debt to Halloween H2O . To say nothing of Scream 4 , which already riffed on the idea of an older Sidney Prescott facing off with not only another deranged teenager in a Ghostface mask but also her survivor’s guilt and complicated feelings about her hometown. Notice a theme?

Horror is overflowing with original ideas and stories; this isn’t about the genre. But there’s something to say about the fact legacy films can’t quit examining, well, their legacies. A longing for the “good old” days and fears of upsetting even moderately vocal fanbases created a cul-de-sac for franchise horror with no way out in sight.

‘Halloween’ (2018)

Before going any further, this isn’t some new creatively bankrupt phenomenon. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween famously tried that whole evolution thing in the 1980s. While connoisseurs appreciate those deviations now, those wild swings didn’t generate the necessary box office or fan response at the time. The Halloween franchise felt the sting so hard that they ensured everyone knew the fourth installment featured Michael Myers. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers was comfort food for those who found Halloween III: Season of the Witch a little hard to digest. But only to a point. While Halloween 4 looked like a series going back to basics for most of its runtime, it did something very different in its final minutes that telegraphed a unique direction going forward. And yet, that moment gets explained away and rendered moot by the time Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers arrives one year later.

The creative urge for something new constantly clashes with the business need for something that prints money. The dollars and cents worshipers at the top of the industry often believe that taking the most minor creative risks makes the most sense because it leads to more dollars.

That’s why Nancy and her dad couldn’t escape Elm St. Or why Michael rarely stopped chasing his relatives. Or even the improbability that the Brody’s couldn’t escape Great White Sharks even while vacationing in the Bahamas. As the calendar turned and fandoms grew more significant, the demand for that type of thing only got louder. To quote one of the great fictional philosophers of our imaginary time, Philip J. Fry, “Clever things make people feel stupid and unexpected things make them feel scared!” Futurama’s insight is a bit harsh, but there’s still some truth buried in the satire.

‘Scream’ (2022)

In some cases, shifting to tried and true formulas is somewhat understandable. While they’re tacit admissions that sometimes the best idea is the first one, they’re also, at times, necessary business decisions. John Carpenter never envisioned Halloween as more than one movie. The same goes for Wes Craven and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Dollars to donuts, that’s probably the same story for most films that morph into the two words familiar to most people reading this website: intellectual property. That distinction comes with responsibilities to shareholders and CEOs and, no pun intended, the lifeblood of some companies. Ghostface is no longer just a person in a Spirit Halloween robe and a cheap dime store mask; Scream’s chief killer is a brand.

What was once taboo is now a t-shirt at almost any department store. There are Ghostface Funko Pops, ceramic mugs, backpacks, and even a hockey jersey for the little ones. Let’s keep it real: Scream and other franchises of its ilk have more in common today with McDonald’s or Burger King than the original horror flicks studios produce. That’s not an inherently bad thing, but it is a thing; viewing these properties through that prism makes the math add up. That’s why Jamie Lee Curtis found herself at the center of not one, but two Halloween “reboots” twenty years apart from one another. The movies about the psycho wearing the William Shatner mask established their formula in ’78, so no matter what, they always revert to something from that time period. Even the proposed Halloween TV series is a “creative reset” returning to… ’78.

Staying trapped in the familiar is on the con side of the ledger when horror becomes more significant than just a simple movie. Easily discernible why? Sure. But can it also mean preaching to the same choir from one installment to the next? Also yeah.

Fede Alvarez embraced yesteryear with Alien: Romulus , but he believes he did so without alienating (pun very much intended) a new audience. “You never want an audience to go see a movie and furrow their brow thinking, ‘Who is this person?’ Why is half the cinema so excited about this man and I don’t know who he is?” said Alvarez in a recent interview . “It becomes an excess I’m not interested in.”

‘Alien: Romulus’

How one feels about the excesses of which he showed great interest in Romulus aside, his overall point rings true. Rooting franchises in their glory days means not making them relevant for today. Everyone involved becomes so focused on paying homage to the past or dealing with older characters that they don’t justify the present or chart a future. That’s precisely where Scream finds itself right now. There’s a lot to how the seventh entry arrived at this point. So much so that there isn’t enough ink to cover it all here. What matters now is the beloved series moving away from a story that attracted old fans and created new ones in favor of playing the hits. Given the circumstances, the creative team behind the next Scream didn’t simply break glass in case of emergency so much as they shattered it by throwing a 100 mph fastball in the form of the Sidney Prescott solution.

For several reasons, some that look incredibly cynical, Scream can’t escape the vicious cycle even though it charted new waters.

We had a new core cast. The Grim Reaper finally collected on Dewey Riley’s long-term debt. Sidney was out of the picture, and who knows how many more attempts on her life Gale Weathers could weather. Scream and Scream VI reflected on their legacy without bathing in it. The movies looked fresh through the eyes of new characters rather than being slavish to Generation X and Millennials. Scream 4’s original ending almost pulled off this same high-wire act in 2011 until it didn’t. Some people behind the scenes got cold feet in the 9th inning for whatever reason. Writer Kevin Williamson’s bold move went bye-bye in favor of the status quo. Almost 15 years later, the Scream franchise still suffers from chili digits. Sadly, it’s not the only one.

For a genre built on punk rock sensibilities, there’s far too much conformity and timidness at the top of the food chain. Cul-de-sacs keep us in comfortable places by design, but horror isn’t about comfort. It never was. The second these prominent properties remember that is the reason Target happily sells t-shirts to children with masked killers etched on the front, we might finally get off this road to nowhere.

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The Butterfly Effect (2004)

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The Butterfly Effect movies are about an individual who travels through time, and then has to deal with unexpected consequences. The title refers to the butterfly effect, a popular hypothetical example of chaos theory which illustrates how small initial differences may lead to large unforeseen consequences over time.

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10 Movies Based On The Butterfly Effect Theory

6. Donnie Darko (Richard Kelley, 2001)

Donnie Darko has reached cult status as one of the most confusing movies of all time; and writer/director Richard Kelley will forever be remembered as the man that messed with our heads big time through a bizarre, almost dreamlike experience.

This is also Jake Gyllenhaal’s breakthrough performance as the moody teenager Donnie Darko. Other members of the cast are Jena Malone as Gretchen, Drew Barrymore as Ms. Pomeroy, and his sister Maggie Gyllenhaal is portraying his sister, Elizabeth. All the performances are spot on and the movie wouldn’t be anywhere near its current cult classic status without the amazing cast.

This genre-defying movie is about a troubled youth (Jake Gyllenhaal) with severe mental problems that starts hallucinating about a freaky bunny named Frank. In the aftermath of a jet engine crashing in Donnie’s room and Frank saving Donnie’s life (by willing him out of the house beforehand), the bunny becomes more demanding and starts pushing the teenager to do bad things.

Donnie Darko deals with themes of time-travel and time-traveling objects that disrupt the flow of reality, quantum physics, paradoxes, madness and religion.

There are different timelines in this movie that influence and disrupt each other – therefore a lot of butterflies flapping or not flapping their wings depending on the reality sequence. For example, if Frank didn’t push Donnie to a certain misdeed, other characters wouldn’t feel the consequences.

The movie was actually re-released in 2004 as a Director’s Cut with 20 extra minutes added for enriching the material – but not for providing more clarity. And that’s okay. The reason why Donnie Darko works so well and that it’s quoted by many as their favourite movie, lays precisely in the confusion, in the theories and the rolling over all night trying to figure out “what does it all mean?”.

7. 12B (Jeeva, 2001)

12B is the directorial debut of highly acclaimed Tamil cinematographer Jeeva. He’s the writer, director and cinematographer of this 2001 flick.

The movie gets its name from a bus route in Chennai, making the route 12B the focal point of the narrative. While both 12B and Sliding Doors hold thematic and narrative similarities – aside from a few key moments when Jeeva’s creative input reaches zero and “similarity” becomes “the same” –, they do have some differences.

For one, the main character is played by a male lead. Shakthi (Shaam) leaves his house one morning to go to an interview. In order to get there, he needs to board bus 12B.

Will he catch the bus or miss it? The butterfly effect theory comes into play when a narrator announces that we are about to examine both possible outcomes from this seemingly unimportant event. The narrative then splits into two alternate realities that show us the different life paths taken by Shakthi following the bus incident.

Another difference is, of course, that the Kollywood (no, it’s not a misspell) romantic comedy-drama is sprinkled with musical moments. But the most interesting thing about this movie, and the only part that seems truly original, is that these two possible courses of Shakthi’s life end up morphing into one: Shakthi 1 tinkers with the course of life of Shakthi 2.

12B got generally good reviews in India, and has a 6.3 rating on IMDB. But is it worth watching? Yes, as long as you don’t watch it expecting greatness.

Watch it for its good choreography, Tamil humour, charming characters and the tiny original sci-fi idea that pushes the boundaries of this alternate-lives-plagued-by-chaos story. And because it’s another movie to add to your butterfly effect collection.

8. Chaos Theory (Marcos Siega, 2008)

In this American dramedy the chaos theory is at the core of one man’s rapidly descending happiness and stability (to put it mildly).

The story centres Frank (Ryan Reynolds), a motivational speaker obsessed with punctuality. His wife Susan (Emily Mortimer) doesn’t share his enthusiasm for an overly scheduled life and attempts to ease him up a bit.

To do that, she turns the clock back 10 minutes in an attempt to give her husband more time one very important morning. She accomplishes the opposite and Frank ends up missing the ferry – yet another butterfly effect movie that borrows on the idea of missed public transport that causes unexpected changes in the characters’ lives.

Only in Chaos Theory there are no alternate realities or parallel universes. There’s no magic realism, no time-travel or sci-fi, it’s just real life at its messiest.

The story thematically plays on both definitions of chaos – as a noun and as a theory. As a general definition, chaos refers to randomness and disorder. Its scientific meaning is dynamic instability, which tackles the unpredictability of complex systems and their interactions and points to the butterfly effect theory.

The movie’s tagline: “What if your life was completely in order? What if it all is about to change, by accident?” gives us an earlier clue on this conceptual playfulness.

Marcos Siega’s third directorial feature (apart from his TV involvement) is not an intellectual attempt, but a pure-blooded American comedy, with the platitudes and turn of events that Hollywood has gotten us used to. But that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy this flick.

Especially when its stars are the likable Ryan Reynolds and Emily Mortimer and the movie’s takeout is to “say yes to whim, say yes to chance, say yes to chaos”. How can you say “no” to that?

9. Mr. Nobody (Jaco Van Dormael, 2009)

From one of cinema’s most original filmmakers, Mr. Nobody is a dazzling sci-fi epic. Written and directed by Jaco Van Dormael, the sci-fi romantic drama is a truly complex and artistic movie, one that taps into numerous themes and makes use of fantastic visual effects.

At the age of 9, Nemo Nobody (portrayed as an adult by multitalented Jared Leto) has to make a decision of whether to stay with his father or move away with his mother. Standing on the train platform, the boy is unable to make a choice and thus creates infinite possibilities for himself.

The movie goes on exploring all the possible outcomes in a nonlinear fashion, jumping from mysterious old Nemo from year 2092, to adult, teenage and young Nemo born in 1975 – each with their own parallel lives. Like in Blind Chance, we again encounter the train leitmotif as the marker of the deciding event of the story.

Mr. Nobody is deeply philosophical and explorative, getting inspiration not only from the butterfly effect theory (a leaf’s journey causing Nemo’s parents meeting), but also from chaos theory and quantum mechanics, exploring everything from matter to events and chain reactions.

In an interview with Collider in 2013, the Belgian director claimed that “the film is very simple, it resembles the way we think, with multiple possibilities. It’s like having a phone call while, at the same time, having a conversation on the computer while, at the same time, watching a film.”

A strange film with an even stranger journey, Mr. Nobody packs a lot of themes and ideas of countless “what if” scenarios, alternate lives, sci-fi, romance and drama in a very intelligent and thought-provoking manner.

10. About Time (Richard Curtis, 2013)

Richard Curtis’ third directorial feature after Love, Actually and The Boat That Rocket, brought us a charming, time-travel infused romantic comedy, with a fresh take on modern love.

Tim, a lonely 21-year-old youth, finds out that he has the ability to travel in time. So there goes, with this revelation and newfound superpower, our hero decides to go on a love quest. All he really wants is a girlfriend and the stability that comes with a relationship. But is his time travel ability that hinders his efforts and it’s the same ability that ultimately aids him.

It is also the time travel bit that gets messy and shifts into the butterfly effect territory. The movie proves its support of the theory by showing us that even when we think we can escape every day’s randomness by going back through time and carefully forging a new path, even then the butterfly will flutter its wings and cause other unforeseen events.

About Time stars Domhnall Gleeson as Tim – who’s had a fantastic 2015, acting in Ex-Machina, The Revenant, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Brooklyn –, Rachel McAdams as Mary, the wooee – Oscar nominated actress and rom-com poster girl for The Notebook, The Time Traveler’s Wife and Aloha – and Bill Nighy as Tim’s dad in one of his most endearing roles since Love, Actually.

The great revelation of this movie is that the main focus of the story is not actually romantic love. Richard Curtis takes a page out of Hitchcock’s book in Psycho and kills off the main character (“the quest for love”) in the first part of the movie.

The actors give outstanding performances and the chemistry between Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams is palpable. The soundtrack is perfect, and for those of you that enjoy this genre, you will be greatly rewarded.

For those of you sci-fi lovers that are considering watching this movie only for its time travel narrative: don’t. You will be disappointed. The idea is messy, the rules are broken and in the end the theory lacks logic.

In a nutshell, About Time is a wonderful story about family, love and what it means to live a life that you’re proud of, with or without the benefit of traveling thorough time. This story is more than a time-travel romantic comedy, it is a meditation on relationships, on decisions and living.

Honorable Mentions: Jurassic Park, Frequency, Looper.

Author Bio: Clara Nicolaescu is a full time adventurer passionate about storytelling. When she’s not geeking out watching movies, she’s a digital and writing wizard.

The Butterfly Effect Review

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Catching Dust Review: A Tense & Unpredictable Domestic Violence Thriller

Greedy people review: coen brother vibes help boost joseph gordon-levitt's hillbilly noir, the killer review: doesn't hold a candle to the original but not a dud either.

The last two movies Ashton Kutcher has starred in came out in the worst movie months of the year. Just Married came out last January and My Bosses Daughter came out in August. But he's the new hot kid in TinselTown with his hit TV show Punk'd and his May-December romance with Demi Moore. Even so, it's not a huge surprise that his new movie, The Butterfly Effect is coming out in January, the space on the calendar usually reserved for movies the studios are unsure of. Will The Butterfly Effect increase his rapidly growing star power? Probably not. I came into the movie thinking it could either be really good or really bad. Well, it's neither, just slightly above average and while it's not as bad as, oh, Gigli, it's not nearly as good as any of the other big dogs that will be vying for Oscar nominations on Tuesday.

It's probably not a big surprise that the co-writers/co-directors wrote Final Destination 2, since The Butterfly Effect treads on fairly similar ground. But while the premise of the Final Destination movies is fairly improbable, this movie is even more improbable...and they both share really crappy titles. This movie is about the crazy life of Evan Treborn (Kutcher) and this crazy brain he has that enables him to change the past, which of course, gives him and the ones around him totally different lives. But this crazy brain must be in the genes, because his father had the same kind of power, which landed him in an insane asylum. But Evan tries to use his power for good, not evil, of course, and he goes in and out of these "lives" he has whenever he changes something, playing God, so to say, and he must learn to cope with his powers...and stuff. See, I told you it was improbable.

I'm glad they had Evan try to figure this all out for himself, instead of having this one person on Earth who lives in seclusion and is the only one who knows the truth about these powers. Remember that big black guy in the Final Destination movies? Yeah, I'm glad they didn't do that. And I'm glad they harkened back to the old-school horror movies by putting in a lot of really jumpy scenes in the movie. There was a lot of shock factor in this movie, and I haven't seen anything quite like it in awhile, and I liked it a lot. But I was really shocked that they expected us to believe that his brain can teleport him back to his past, and stuff like that. I mean, I know it's a movie, and they can push and stretch the bounds of reality. Like I can buy God telling people to kill "demons" in Frailty, and I can buy split-personality killers in Identity. But I just can't believe that his head is a time machine. Sorry, but it just doesn't work for me.

I wasn't quite sure what to think of the hyper Kutcher playing it straight in a dramatic movie, but he didn't do too bad, actually. Kutcher portrayed Evan’s toned-down and sometimes-psychotic demeanor fairly nicely. He kind of looked like a goon at some points, and he was going over the top in other parts, but I would say his overall performance was good. Amy Smart and Elden Henson, who were both in the highly underrated The Battle of Shaker Heights, turn in very nice performances here too as Kayleigh and Lenny. Melora Waters is very good as well, as Evan's mom and Ethan Supplee is O.K. as Thumper, which is just a perfect name for him. But the show-stealing performance, however, comes from Jesse James, who plays the younger Tommy, Kayleigh's brother. He's excellent as this psychotic young kid who likes burning dogs and beating the crap out of people. Think of Maccauley Culkin's character in The Good Son and multiply it by 74. The kid is way out there, and James portrays him wonderfully.

The script, while kind of inventive, is the biggest problem with the movie, mainly because it doesn't really have a modicum of, well, reality. They build tension very nicely, and it doesn't over-explain the crazy-brain parts, leaving it up to us to figure it out, which I thought was a nice touch. But there's some pretty crap-tacular dialogue, an incredibly long and boring middle part of the movie and they blew their chance to have a nice, realistic ending. I of course won't spoil it for you, but all the unrealistic parts could've been rectified if they would've just ended it about 10 minutes earlier. But, of course, they don't.

Directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, who also wrote the script, have a pretty nice style here and their direction has a certain flow about it, even though the middle of the movie dragged it down a lot. They handled Kutcher nicely in his first dramatic role and they're incredibly explicit violence shocked the crap out of me, which most directors might have gone a different route with. I'm glad they didn't, though. With better material, hopefully written by someone other than themselves, they could be a fairly solid directing team.

The Butterfly Effect is a movie about changing the past rather than moving on. The whole movie, I just kept waiting for Kutcher to look at the camera and say, "You've just been Punk'd," and in a way, he did punk us. Even though it's not that bad, he punk'd us into thinking it's a lot better than it really is.

Movie and TV Reviews
The Butterfly Effect (2004)

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The Butterfly Effect (2004) a good movie with a bad reputation

The butterfly effect is a Sci-fi thriller starting Ashton Kutcher. The film revolves around Kutcher's character very very troubled upbringing, and a unique ability he discovers. He attempts to use this ability to change things for the better, but results vary. I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it, that is as basic description as I can get without spoiling much. Spoilers will be below.

When the butterfly effect is discussed online it is mostly due to criticism of the film betraying it's own internal logic. If you look at any AskReddit what movie has a big plothole thread, it is likely that The Butterfly Effect will be a top response. This is an accurate and fair criticism as the film betrays the logic in order to get the character out of a situation. Instead of the action having ramifications throughout his whole life like all the others had, it only gives him scars and keeps him in the same reality, when it should make his whole life play out different. However I believe that overlooking this issue the film stands as an awesome movie with a unique and interesting premise.

One thing that I found interesting is that the movie is not afraid to take on very heavy subjects, and to use child actors to cover them. For a major film staring a star of The 70s show and punked, this film goes dark hard and fast. The premise of being able to change our past is not unique, it is a major motif of science fiction. I liked this films take on the idea. Kutcher's character suffers from blackouts, during which major negative events in his life occur. Later on he realizes he can replay these events and change the course of his life and others.

The way in which they are revisted multiple times later on in the film, and how the situations play out differently allows for the same scence to be shown many times without being stale. When we are shown the other ways that he attempts to resolve the situation, I was intrigued to think about what he could've done better and to see how he would implement what he knew about the future into his past.

I have a thing for alternate realities, so I loved when the film starts to switch futures and I was drawn in. The film fearlessly doesn't hold back when it comes to how his attempts seem to be futile. It is tragic to see a child actor try to fight back against a child molester, only to realize that he is making things worse for the very people he is trying to protect. While the Child actors aren't great, they are serviceable considering the material that they are having to deal with.

I mean it when I say this film is DARK. The first time I saw this I was in fifth grade. I remember it leaving a specific feeling that I hadn't got from any other film. Other than the very disturbing things that happens to a child and his true love and friends/man who is all around seemingly a good guy is tragic, it doesn't really have too many smilies throughout. Especially knowing what he went through and his special difficulties, it makes you sympathize with him, at least it did for me.

The movie also has another one of my favorite motifs(I think I'm using that correctly), a doomed protagonist. No matter what he does, Kutcher's world is fucked up. He can't win.

I just want to mention that this movie made me feel that type of cringe that reverberates through my knees. It has all the things that hit me hard, child abuse, animal abuse, implied prison rape, and more.

With all these heavy and dark things going on, the film makes a mistep if you see the theatrical cut. Remember that there are spoilers below. If you see the theatrical cut, the movie that just hadn't had one happy reality for the protagonist ends with the best possible outcome randomly for the protagonist. He goes from telling his true love he will kill her and her family if she talks to him (as a child in this reality), to passing her in a large city, and turning to talk to each other. In most of the other realities, this girl's life turns out horribly, and she is shown to more likely be a prostitute than a successful person, as she is shown in the theatrical ending.

An aspect of the theatrical cut was made clear to me in two comments below. I would now say that the theatrical cut makes sense as why she turned out good instead of bad, as there was something I didn't think about when considering it. So while I would still say it's a big tonal shift, it makes sense for her to be successful given his change he made in that ending.

The huge change in tone really doesn't make sense and is regarded as a bad ending. Other than the internal logic being broken for Convience when I think there were better ways to get out of the situation, the ending is a big thing that is criticized.

The directors cut is much darker and in tone with the film. A lot of people say that if they saw the directors cut first, they have a much better impression of the film. END OF SPOILERS.

So if you haven't seen the film I highly recommend that you check it out and watch the directors ending if you can. If you can handle some depressing stuff, you should enjoy this film as a interesting look at alternate realities. While changing the past has been covered many times in films and literature, this movie is refreshing in the way that it handles the results that playing with the past can do. The movie had two direct to DVD sequels. I remember enjoying the second one, and not so much the third one. The second one is not connected to the first story wise but at least uses the same mechanic of time travel. The third is completely unrelated, and only used the name to try to cash in. I have seen the first at least 10 times and will probably see it at least 10 more. Check it out, and ignore it's negative reputation if you want to see an interesting film.

Just to clarify, I wouldn't argue it's great because it's super well made and the logic holds up, I would say it's great because it is interesting and entertaining the things I look for first and second in a movie.

Note: it has two direct to DVD sequels the second being related only by the time travel mechanic. It is interesting but I wouldn't call it great. It was just good enough to keep my attention but not good enough for me to remember it well. The third one I unrelated completely, except it has time travel. I think they just slapped the name on it as a cash grab.

Some trivia from imdb.com if you're interested.

Co-writren and co-directed by the writers of final destination 2. I think co-directed is rare so that's interesting.

All the prison scences were had real prisoners while it was shot Washington state penitentiary.

The script was widely read and unproduced. It was only produced after Kutcher read it and signed on as the executive producer. He must have really liked it because he researched mental disorders and chaos theory for the film.

There are four different endings. I was only aware of two, director and theatrical. I don't think the other two are very different from theatrical though.

There's is a novelization of the film.

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Screen Rant

10 things you've never noticed from the butterfly effect.

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Tom Cruise's New Movie With Alejandro Iñárritu Adds 6 Acclaimed Actors To Cast

Inside out 2: the heartwarming bing bong easter egg explained (& where to spot it), "exactly the same ending": alien: romulus director confirms similarities with another horror remake.

The Butterfly Effect was a huge hit when it was launched in 2004, exploring controversial existential themes and delving into the world of philosophy and quantum physics to awaken the imaginations of the general public. This science fiction thriller also had a strong cast, including the likes of Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, and Eric Bress. The main theory behind the movie’s script was that small changes can lead to huge consequences over time. This theory is explored through the narrative of protagonist Evan Treborn (played by Kutcher). Still, there are other hidden details in the movie which might further intrigue fans. Here are just 10 of them.

RELATED: 10 Time Travel Movies We'd Never Want To Experience

How Kutcher got the lead role

It seems a succession of good looking and talented actors were in line for the prime role of Evan, the story's protagonist. Joshua Jackson of Dawson's Creek fame was among these, as was Josh Hartnett and Sean William Scott.

While all of these would have done well in the role, it seems the role was tailormade for Ashton Kutcher, who took to it like a fish to water and even did some background research to ensure he aced the role. He ended up coming out a little more famous and a lot more educated.

Tommy's Antisocial Personality Disorder

Viewers would have become aware of Tommy's strange behavior. Critics have commented the odd behaviour is possibly the result of antisocial personality disorder. It's no wonder Kutcher studied psychology to better understand the script. It seems the movie can be appreciated on more than one level, with fans agreeing its action and plot are commendable, and academics flocking to enjoy its subtler, more meaningful nuances.

RELATED: Sharknado 6 Will Include Time Travel, Dinosaurs & Noah's Ark

Stoltz's Wig

Viewers don't usually question the smaller details on movies. Many things are just taken for granted and the greater narrative can often drown out the details of the smaller stories underway. However, on closer inspection, movies like this one are full of fascinating, unbelievable snippets of backstage information. To give an example, Eric Stoltz wears a wig in the movie. In an absurd twist, this wig is made from Stoltz's actual hair! Not a detail one could have easily guessed but something worth hearing about.

Attention To Detail

Directors of the show put an extra effort into creating a movie which has layer upon layer of intrigue. To give an example, the painting over Evan's bed is none other than Salvador Dali's 'Sleep' .

Dali is one of those artists who adds a psychological edge to his works and so his world-class painting is an appropriate addition to a movie with a narrative which challenges intellects and makes thoughtful commentary on psychological and existential truths. Kudos to the production team for thinking of this one!

Related: 5 Shows That Did Time Travel Right (And 5 That Didn't)

More than just eye candy

One could forgive female fans for believing Ashton Kutcher, star of the movie, is nothing more than eye candy. He is gorgeous and it would seem, at first glance, his kind of looks accompanied by brains and determination is wishful thinking. Still, it would seem that for Kutcher, beauty and good looks are more than skin deep.

Dedicated to acting and being a thinker, Kutcher did research on mental disorders and chaos theory before taking on the role. His research on psychology prepared him for the unique movie, and judging by his convincing presentation, it shows!

Real prisons make for realistic drama

The movie has some incredible scenes in it. Fans might wonder how the directors so successfully brought a real-life element to the filming proceedings.

Considering the apparent authenticity of the movie, it would then come as no surprise that the prison scenes in the movie were filmed inside actual prisons. These - the Washington State prisons - set the backdrop for some world-class action. What's more, the extras for the scenes were none other than the prisoners themselves.

RELATED: The 10 Most Anticipated Big Screen Action Movies of 2019

Those eyes...

It's hard not to agree that Ashton Kutcher has some of the finest eyes around. Still, directors might have gone a little overboard when they went all out to match actor Logan Lerman's eyes to Kutcher's. Lerman played Evan (Kutcher's character, at seven years of age) and the production team made the little guy wear specially-made contact lenses so that his eyes would be an exact match to the older character's fine set.

Alternative endings

Fans of The Butterfly Effect probably never realized that four different endings were shot for the film. The film showcased for audiences showed an ending with Evan passing Kayleigh on the sidewalk. He sees her and recognizes her, before continuing walking. One of the alternative endings shows Evan and Kayleigh crossing paths and in keeping with the conventional ‘happy ending’ model, he then asks her out for coffee. The fourth alternative ending is completely different from these, with Evan watching a video of his own birth and coming to a new revelation of his father, who shared the same gift as him.

Related: 10 Best Time Travel Movies If You Like Avengers: Endgame

Thought-provoking themes

The curious title of the movie refers to a concept in Chaos Theory whereby small changes or events can cause unpredictably large changes to the timeline. As explained in the opening sequence of the movie, a butterfly flapping its wings can eventually result in a typhoon. Critics of the film weren't initially sure this concept would wash down well with the broader public, however, the film turned out to be a box office hit - an indication that audiences were more reflective and thoughtful than Tinsel Town might have initially believed.

Burn speaks volumes

It is hard to say how long the team behind The Butterfly Effect sat down to work out the finer details on set. Still, one has to commend them on being thorough in their work. This is a fact: Evan's cigarette burn scar is in the shape of the symbol of Chaos Theory. This is at the heart of ' The Butterfly Effect' . How they worked that one out, it is hard to say but in 'movie land' even cigarette burns can speak volumes. The rest of us carry average burns but as they say, everything is bigger and better on the big screen!

NEXT: Ranked: The Alternate Universes The Flash Has Created By Time Travel

The Butterfly Effect

Things In The Butterfly Effect You Only Notice After Watching It More Than Once

Evan notices something after reading his journal twice

"The Butterfly Effect" follows the life of Evan Treborn, played by Logan Lerman at seven years old and John Patrick Amedori at 13. Memory gaps plague Evan during his childhood, many of which are linked with traumatic events he experienced with his friends Lenny, Kayleigh, and Tommy. Evan's mother, Andrea (Melora Walters), is troubled by these blackouts because Evan's father, Jason (Callum Keith Rennie), suffered from similar blackouts before being committed to a mental institution.

As a college student, Evan (Ashton Kutcher) studies psychology to understand why he has memory gaps but hopes to retrieve his lost memories. Evan has a strange experience while reading one of his journals that sees him reliving a terrible experience that resulted in the death of his dog Crocket and becomes convinced he can travel through time. After visiting Kayleigh (Amy Smart) to ask about another blackout, she commits suicide, and Evan travels back in time, hoping to save her, but soon discovers that significant changes in the past make for unpredictable results.

Ashton Kutcher's transformation from goofy Michael Kelso of "That '70s Show" into Evan may not have been a hit with critics, but "The Butterfly Effect" was a commercial success, raking in $95 million worldwide. Like most time travel movies , this sci-fi thriller has its fair share of plot holes and paradoxes, which are only compounded by Evan's ability to remember all his timelines. Keep reading to explore some things you only notice after watching "The Butterfly Effect" more than once.

Evans wears a St. Christopher necklace

You probably noticed that Evan wears a necklace in "The Butterfly Effect," but you may have not thought about the significance of the specific necklace he wears. As fans pointed out on Twitter , Evan wears a St. Christopher pendant throughout every phase of his life during the film. This is a noteworthy motif that foreshadows Evan's supernatural gift to travel through time in his mind because St. Christopher is known as the patron saint of travelers. Evan becomes a time traveler in college after discovering his journals can transport him back in time to experience events from his childhood and even give him a chance to change these events in hopes of making a better life for his friends Tommy, Lenny, and Kayleigh.

This detail begs a few questions. The most important of those questions, however, is did Evan inherit his pendant from his father, just like he inherited his powers? Although it is only vaguely hinted at in the theatrical release of the film, which is the version of the film we are exploring today, the director's cut suggests this power to travel through time was inherited from his father, Jason, who inherited the curse from his own father. This ability ultimately has tragic consequences, as it leads to both men being institutionalized and dying in the asylums they were committed to. Did Jason insist his son wear a St. Christopher pendant as a protective amulet to safeguard Evan from the dangers of time travel?

Evan's time travel is the source of his memory lapses

Although it should be clear to the audience that Evan's memory lapses, or blackouts, are caused by his time travel, the movie doesn't explicitly state this. If you didn't piece it together the first time you watched "The Butterfly Effect," you definitely understood this during your second viewing. It appears that Evan experienced these blackouts as a child because his adult consciousness took over his body while visiting from the future.

This unique mechanism suggests the type of time travel Evan and his father experience would be limited to their own lifespans, something similar to what Dr. Samuel Beckett (Scott Bakula) experiences in "Quantum Leap." Evan and Jason do not physically transport themselves through time, they mentally transport their adult consciousness to their own body in the past. They can effect change in the future through alternative choices during their younger years, but every trip to the past creates a new memory lapse.

Although the film's action suggests this hypothesis, it is never clear if Evan understands that his ability to time travel is the source of his blackouts. The film is told through Evan's point of view, so we see Evan's life through his linear experience of growing up before discovering he can travel back to his childhood. This type of time travel also introduces an interesting paradox in that Evan has to travel back in time to cause the blackouts he experienced as a child, which suggests that time in the film's world is circular rather than linear.

Evan's violent drawing is the ultimate time paradox in the film

The technique and skill of the drawing Evan's teacher shows to his mother at the beginning of "The Butterfly Effect" is clearly the artwork of an adult. In your first viewing, this drawing is the first sign something hinky is going on. Upon a second screening, this drawing confirms our suspicion Evan's blackouts as a child were caused by his adult consciousness hijacking his mind as a child.

Evan only travels back to his childhood classroom to convince his cellmate Carlos (Kevin Durand) to help him retrieve his journals from the neo-Nazis who stole them. Evan chooses this location because the page he ripped from his journal when it was stolen has an entry about the drawing. This scene is one of the biggest abuses of time travel logic in the film because the marks Evan creates on his hands while time traveling should have always been there from Carlos' perspective, while the scars would have appeared suddenly to Evan.

Evan remembers his original timeline despite the alternate timelines he creates by changing the past. The crux of the entire time travel scenario in this film relies upon Evan going back in time to create that drawing, leading to his psychologist recommending Evan keep the journals he ultimately uses to travel back in time. This scene bothers some fans on Reddit, but isn't part of the fun of time travel movies arguing about the paradoxes of time travel?

The drawing is of the neo-Nazis Evan will kill when he returns to prison

You probably missed this the first time around, but the violent and disturbing drawing that led to Evan visiting a psychologist as a child and keeping a journal throughout his life is of the neo-Nazis Evan is harassed by while in prison for killing Tommy (William Lee Scott).

After making this drawing (to continue the time travel loop) and stabbing his hands on spikes in the classroom, Evan is transported back to prison with evidence of stigmata as "proof" for his religious cellmate, Carlos. When Mrs. Boswell (Lorena Gale) asks the children to draw what they want to be when they grow up, Evan draws himself as a killer. He does this because he is dealing with the trauma of killing Tommy and because he plans to kill the neo-Nazi when he returns to jail so he can retrieve his journals and travel back in time again, hoping to create an alternate timeline where he doesn't kill Tommy this time around.

There are only unpredictable consequences when Evan tries to alter other's lives

Evan, Kayleigh, Lenny, and Tommy watch mailbox

Some felt Evan stabbing his hands in his classroom should have created changes, so Evan wouldn't have returned to jail for killing Tommy, but this is evidence of a pattern we see repeatedly in "The Butterfly Effect." When Evan alters events that only involve himself, or his mother and father, there are no consequences and the future timeline he returns to is the same. When Evan revisits the mailbox bomb the first time, he burns himself with his cigarette but goes back to an unchanged reality.

When Evan travels back to meet his father and asks how time travel works, his father strangles him just like when he was a kid, and Evan returns to an unchanged reality where he is a college student. When Evan travels back to his kitchen as a child to find a knife to cut up the stick of dynamite while visiting Kayleigh and Tommy in their basement, he immediately jumps back to the reality where he is an amputee.

However, when Evan goes back to the past to alter events to help Kayleigh, Lenny, or Tommy, the consequences are devastating. In one alternate timeline, Lenny winds up in a mental institution, while Kayleigh is an addict and sex worker. In one timeline, Tommy, Lenny, and Kayleigh are happy and healthy, but Evan is an amputee and his mother is dying. Tommy dies in two timelines. In another, Kayleigh dies and Evan ends up in an institution.

Evan only gets nosebleeds when he revisits a past event more than once

Evan only gets nosebleeds when he revisits a blackout for the second time, and he only goes back to his previous blackouts more than once when he wants to change something. Evan only revisits three blackouts twice and gets a nosebleed on the second visit when he changes something. Telling George off in the basement and saving the woman and her baby from the mailbox bomb both result in a nosebleed and brain damage.

The single exception to this pattern in "The Butterfly Effect" is when a 13-year-old Evan tries to recover his memory with his psychologist while under hypnosis. Evan struggles to understand what is happening in his memory, suggesting it is disjointed. All he can remember is the mailbox, the bomb, and a car driving up before Evan gets his first nosebleed and Dr. Redfield (Nathaniel DeVeaux) pulls Evan out of his hypnotic state. Is this because his future self visited this memory twice and there are multiple versions of that incident in multiple realities?

One interesting but confusing element of time travel logic in this movie is that Evan can hold the memories of every alternate reality he creates when he changes something in his past. The damage to his brain is consistent with mapping 40 years' worth of memories in one year, as Evan explains to Andrea while consulting Dr. Redfield after a nosebleed upon returning from changing what happened the day Tommy killed Crocket.

Evan develops more control over his time travel gift

The first time Evan intentionally travels back in time to change something, he goes back to the day George Miller (Eric Stoltz) made an inappropriate movie of Evan and Kayleigh in the basement. Evan returns to the backyard before they go to the basement, exactly when Evan's blackout began in the original timeline. Evan tells George off, explaining if he goes down this road, taking advantage of Kayleigh's trust, she will become a broken shell and commit suicide. Kayleigh tells George to never touch her again and Evan returns to a timeline where things are very different.

The second time Evan revisits the junkyard, he arrives before his blackout begins in the original timeline, grabbing a metal shard and giving it to Lenny to cut open the sack, so he can save Crocket while Evan talks Tommy down. Arriving before his blackout began in the first timeline shows Evan has more control over time travel and suggests he isn't limited to visiting his blackouts. This intervention is more successful because Evan talks Tommy down and saves Crocket, but this still has disastrous consequences when Lenny kills Tommy with the shard, resulting in a new reality where Lenny is institutionalized and Kayleigh is an addict and sex worker.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services .

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Jason foreshadows Andrea's illness in a future timeline

When Evan time travels back to when he met his father for the first time in the psychiatric hospital, Evan asks Jason for help understanding how time travel works, hoping he can avoid the disastrous results his father has experienced. Jason tells Evan he can't play God and that you can never predict what will happen when you change something, saying, "just by being here, you may be killing your mother." Evan doesn't believe Jason, replying, "I'll send you a postcard when I've made everything perfect again," finally revealing why Jason attacked Evan when they met during the original timeline.

After Evan attempts to stop the mailbox bombing during his next time travel experiment, the reality Evan returns to is one in which he is an amputee because of the mailbox bomb and his mother, Andrea, is dying of lung cancer after becoming a chain smoker in the wake of Evan's life-altering accident. Jason's comment to Evan foreshadowed this alternate timeline, suggesting Jason had extensive experience with time travel before he was committed to the institution.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website .

There are multiple scenarios that repeat no matter what Evan changes

There are some constants throughout "The Butterfly Effect" until everything unravels and leads toward the climax of the film. These constants suggest Evan has a predictable arc to his life, regardless of minor changes, which is contrary to the chaos theory's butterfly effect, which hypothesizes that slight changes have a huge and unpredictable impact on the future. We have seen consistently that when Evan revisits the past and changes something concerning himself, the changes are negligible, and Evan's life largely remains the same.

Evan goes to the same college in all but one alternate timeline. If Lenny is mentally healthy, they are roommates; but if Lenny is unhealthy, Thumper (Ethan Suplee) is Evan's roommate. The one time Evan isn't living in the dorms with a roommate and studying psychology, he is in a fraternity while Kayleigh is in a sorority, and they are a couple. This alternate reality resulted from an enormous change in the past, one that specifically affected Kayleigh's life trajectory.

In the only timeline where Evan doesn't go to college, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital as a child after Kayleigh was killed in an explosion that was Evan's fault. It's obvious that despite his efforts, everything Evan tries to do to save Kayleigh only dooms her to a worse fate and that the more significant changes he attempts to make, the more disastrous the consequences are. By the climax of the film, Evan has concluded that his presence in Kayleigh and Tommy's life is detrimental.

Evan doesn't actually need a journal to time travel

Evan initially uses his journals to time travel, but when the journal is unavailable in the timeline where Evan has been committed to a psychiatric hospital, Evan must adjust his methods. A conversation between Evan and his psychiatrist Dr. Redfield suggests Evan's father, Jason, used photographs to travel back in time. This is further explored in the director's cut of "The Butterfly Effect" where we learn that Evan's grandfather was also a time traveler. Instead of relying on his journals, Evan uses a home video, successfully traveling back to the first time he met Kayleigh at a birthday party, hoping to prevent them from becoming friends.

During his experiences in alternate timelines, Evan learned Kayleigh lived with her father because she didn't want to move away from Evan because he was the first person she cared for. After Evan threatens Kayleigh's family and says he hates her, Evan returns to an alternate timeline where Lenny and Evan grew up not knowing Kayleigh and Tommy, who lived with their mother. Evan and Lenny are happy. Tommy and Kayleigh grew up loved and were not traumatized. Satisfied with this reality, Evan burns all his pictures, journals, and the home movie so he won't be tempted to return to the past ever again.

Evan's fate differed from Jason's because Evan learned from his mistakes

Evan's success in going back to the birthday party confirms Evan can travel to events other than his established blackouts, and he doesn't need journals to do it. It also suggests that if Evan continued traveling back to other events in his past, he would create more blackouts and brain damage from the changes he attempted to make during these visits.

The end of the film suggests Evan's fate differed from Jason's because Evan prevented him and Kayleigh from being friends and he stopped time traveling after that choice created a reality he could accept. Jason wound up in a psychiatric facility, suggesting he either kept traveling until he caused so much brain damage to himself that he was institutionalized — or he wound up in the institution because of something he tried to change.

The original ending of "The Butterfly Effect" was quite grim. Instead of going to the birthday party, Evan traveled back to the womb, intent on erasing his existence to protect everyone else. Although this ending was never filmed, the director's cut revealed Andrea had two pregnancies before Evan that didn't carry to term. This information raises some questions, but even the theatrical cut leaves us wondering. Did Evan actually travel back to the mailbox incident for the first time when he was a teenager while under hypnosis? If Evan can time travel in his mind unaided by memorabilia, why did he bother burning everything?

The Butterfly Effect collection (2004-2009)

Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart in The Butterfly Effect (2004)

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Eric Lively and Erica Durance in The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006)

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The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations (2009)

3. The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations

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The Butterfly Effect

Reviewed by: Brett Willis STAFF WRITER


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How can I be and feel forgiven? Answer

If God forgives me every time I ask, why do I still feel so guilty? Answer

Why is the world the way it is? Answer

Featuring	Eldon Henson William Lee Scott Eric Stoltz Melora Walters Ethan Suplee
Director
Producer
Distributor	, division of Warner Bros. Pictures

“Such minor changes, such huge consequences.”

A ll of us have wished for the chance to be able go back in time and change certain actions, in order to undo the negative effects . But it’s important never to cross over into imagining that we actually CAN alter the past. God’s forgiveness will undo some of the negative effects; but the actions themselves, and some of their consequences, are irreversible. Some people, by over-fantasizing about changing things, have committed some missteps at their high school reunions etc. and have made things worse instead of better.

Of course, that’s the REAL world. In the REEL world, “The Butterfly Effect” plays directly to our fantasies about changing the past. It involves “alternate universes,” but without time-travel in the classic sense. Its method of branching into an alternate universe is one part “ Somewhere in Time ,” one part “ Frequency ,” and one part original approach.

The central character, Evan Treborn ( Ashton Kutcher ), suffered repression blackouts as a child. Now, at age 20, he hasn’t had any blackouts for seven years, and he summons up the courage to revisit the events that he’s always shielded himself from. But while reading a page from one of his personal journals written during a “blackout day,” he discovers that he has the special ability to transport his consciousness back to that time, and change his actions.

Once that’s done, his consciousness immediately reverts to the present day, but with his own life and everything around him altered on the basis of the changed actions. And since he still has his “old” set of memories in addition to a new, implanted set, his brain matter swells from the overload and he bleeds from the nose. If he makes too many of these trips back, he’s liable to die of a stroke.

Evan and his friends Lenny Kagan, Kayleigh Miller, and Kayleigh’s brother Tommy, along with Evan’s mom Andrea (Melora Walters), are the main characters. One set of actors (Kutcher plus Elden Henson, Amy Smart and William Lee Scott) plays the four friends in the present day, at age 20 or so; another set plays them at age 13; and still another set plays all of them except Lenny at age 7. The physical resemblance and consistent mannerisms from one set of actors to another is good enough that we have no doubt who’s who as we move forward in time. Also, the adult actors are required to take on multiple character roles in the alternate universes: In each permutation of reality, they’re still the same people, but are radically altered by their circumstances. A frat girl becomes a hooker; a murderer becomes a born-again Christian.

Many films fail to make their characters three-dimensional; this one goes far beyond three dimensions. And the child actors as well as the adults are emotional and convincing in their roles.

Evan begins to alter the past with the instinctive goal of making himself, his three friends and his mom all happy and well-adjusted people. But, as you might expect, each change has unintended consequences. In every alternate universe, some of the main characters are better off but others are worse. Evan finally goes even farther back in time than he intended, in a sacrificial act intended to wipe out ALL the negative events. That’s as close to a positive element as this film ever gets.

Before I go any further, a warning: This is an extremely upsetting film, containing material seldom seen in mainstream cinema. I’m a very hardened filmgoer, but this one was tough to endure even for me. If you’re sensitive to vulgar, offensive or blasphemous material, you may want to skip not only this film but the rest of this review as well. For those still interested, read on. This review is provided as a service. But I absolutely don’t recommend this film to anyone.

After an introductory present-day teaser, here’s what the filmgoer sees in the first half hour or so. At age seven, Evan begins to have blackouts. In school, he draws a picture of what he wants to be when he grows up. The picture shows him standing with a knife over two men that he’s wounded or killed. But after the drawing is done, he doesn’t remember having made it. (Thanks to the swastika tattooed on the arm of one of the men, and to the context in which the adult Evan went back and changed this bit of history later, I finally figured out the meaning of the drawing a couple of hours after the film was finished.)

Later, Evan gets a kitchen knife and holds it in what seems a threatening manner. When confronted by his mom, he can’t explain this incident either. Evan spends a day with Kayleigh and Tommy. Since his own father is in a mental institution, Evan is anxious to see what a family with a real dad is like. Well, Mr. Miller (Eric Stoltz) isn’t a “real dad.” Although Evan has another blackout, it’s obvious that Mr. Miller makes a child porn film using Evan and Kayleigh. When Evan goes to the hospital to meet his own dad (Callum Keith Rennie) for the first time in his life, he has another blackout and wakes up to find his dad trying to choke him to death. The elder Treborn persists until one of the hospital personnel bashes him over the head, killing him.

Fast-forward to age thirteen. The four friends are cigarette-smoking, sex-verb-spouting brats. Mr. Miller still abuses both Kayleigh (who has bruise marks) and Tommy. Tommy, the most sadistic of the lot, goads the relatively mild-mannered Lenny into placing a stick of dynamite (which Mr. Miller had hidden away for some obscure purpose) into a mailbox. And Evan provides a cigarette as a time-delay fuse. Evan has another blackout, so we don’t see the explosion; but obviously something very bad has happened (we learn later that a woman went to the mailbox with an infant in her arms). Lenny, who apparently has asthma, hyperventilates. The kids get away, but they carry the guilt around (except for Evan, who doesn’t remember what happened).

The kids go to a movie theater by themselves, and obviously pay for a show like “Dumb and Dumber,” but sneak into “Se7en” instead. Tommy loves the film; but it creeps out Kayleigh, who is comforted by Evan. As Evan and Kayleigh begin to display romantic feelings for each other, Tommy becomes insanely jealous. He ties up Evan’s dog in a gunnysack, douses him with lighter fluid and prepares to burn him. When Evan tries to interfere, Tommy swings at Evan with a log, first hitting Kayleigh in the face by mistake and then hitting and kicking Evan. Lenny is paralyzed with fear and unable to stand up to Tommy, who proceeds to torch the dog.

Evan’s mom finally moves away from the neighborhood, to give him a new start. He promises he’ll come back for Kayleigh someday. Those are the high points of Act One.

Now at age 20, Evan is in college, a psychology major, doing well. If living a hedonistic lifestyle and having a six-three, 300-pound-plus, sex-crazed, drug-using Goth roommate can be considered doing well. But (not surprisingly) Evan’s three childhood friends are still all messed up. As mentioned before, Evan discovers that he has the power to change the past, and he proceeds to do so; but nothing works out the way he intends. The alternate worlds he creates take us to some very disgusting landscapes.

There’s one alternative where Kayleigh is a scarred, wasted, druggie hooker. Another one where Evan commits murder and gets sent to prison where he needs to join the Aryan Brotherhood for his own protection against the black inmates, but won’t be allowed to join unless he gives oral or anal sex to the Brotherhood leaders. And other alternatives where major characters are physically or mentally incapacitated in various ways and are in some cases driven to attempt suicide. Words fail me to describe the sum total effect of all these dark images.

Violence: Several murders including the violent (offscreen) death of an infant. Ferocious hand-to-hand fighting, including by the child actors. Suicide. Scarring and dismemberment. Killing of a pet dog (simulated). Threats and posturing. Mistreatment of fraternity pledges by the frat brothers administering the initiation.

Language: Over 50 occurrences of f*, many of them spoken by the child actors. About 70 other curses, profanities and vulgarities. Racial slurs, especially in the prison sequence.

Sex/Nudity: The most uncomfortable scene, in my opinion, is where seven-year-old Evan recovers from his blackout and he and Kayleigh are standing next to each other, with confused expressions, not wearing their clothes but holding them up in front of themselves (seen in upper body view only). Eric Stoltz has such a sweet on-screen persona that it’s always hard for me to take him seriously in a villain role, much less that of someone who’d do this to his own daughter. But perhaps the directors are making a point that no matter how innocent someone acts, you don’t know what they really are (which is true).

There are several scenes of simulated or implied sex, mostly in the college sequences, some with movement and/or breast nudity visible. In one alternate world, Evan is in a girls’ dorm with his girlfriend, and walks to the bathroom down the hall, while several girls in various states of undress casually show themselves off to him and one girl comes out of the shower displaying full frontal nudity.

Blasphemous content: In the prison sequence, Evan’s cellmate is a tough, tattooed dude and also a Bible-believer (although he comments something to the effect that Jesus Himself couldn’t supply him the power to stand up to the Aryans). To get his cellmate’s help with something, Evan claims that Jesus talks to him in dreams. When the cellmate doesn’t buy his story, Evan projects himself back to his first grade classroom, and stabs his hands on two paper-spindles. The result in the present is that scars from those wounds (which the cellmate regards as “Stigmata”) suddenly appear on Evan’s hands.

In one alternative world, both Evan and Tommy try to stop the mother and her baby from being killed by the mailbox bomb. The adult Kayleigh explains that Tommy became a “Jesus Freak” as a result of that day. That may just be Kayleigh’s take on the situation, but it’s the only one the theater audience is given. So, what’s wrong with that? A person doesn’t become born again by doing good works , but by CEASING to trust in his own works and trusting Jesus alone .

Learn more about Jesus Christ

And of course, the very idea of alternate universes is blasphemous .

One more thing: There are plot holes. Big ones. If we accept the premise of the story, it should be a no-brainer that if Evan projects back to age seven and changes something, and then from the resulting alternate world projects back to age thirteen and changes something else, that in the second alternate world the change made at age seven (and its results) should STAY CHANGED. But that’s not the case. Also, we eventually figure out that some of Evan’s blackouts in the “original universe” were the result of him projecting himself back from “later universes.” So these parallel worlds are influencing each other in an incomprehensible, non-linear fashion.

Bottom line: There’s a great deal of objectionable material that I HAVEN’T detailed. Partly so as not to give away the storyline for those of you who insist on seeing this film, and partly because there’s simply no room to tell it all. My assessment is, if you’re a serious Christian or just an ordinary decent person of any stripe, and you see this film, you’ll regret having done so. I do.

Violence: Extreme | Profanity: Extreme | Sex/Nudity: Heavy

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers .

Young people

Mental Health

Why the "Butterfly Effect" Should Inspire You – Not Lead to Decision Anxiety

a butterfly in the palm of someone's hand

It is said that when a butterfly flaps its wings in one region of the earth, it could alter the weather patterns in a completely different part of the world. Known as the "butterfly effect," the theory suggests that the small gust of wind a butterfly produces on its morning quest for nectar could actually lead to a tsunami or tornado elsewhere. And though this sort of causation is no more than just a theory, the butterfly effect is a reminder that even the smallest of actions can have the greatest impact.

Similar to the burnt toast theory , the butterfly effect isn't just some buzzword trending on TikTok; it's a powerful reminder that you can have more influence over your life than you may realize.

But before you find yourself deep-breathing your way out of an anxiety rash on your chest, know that the butterfly effect isn't meant to make you spiral about all of your decisions moving forward. Instead, think of the butterfly effect as a positive thing: it's a reminder that there's power hidden within the tiniest of actions and decisions.

Below, mental health expert Caroline Fenkel, LCSW, DSW, shares more about the butterfly effect and how to incorporate its message into your daily mindset without falling victim to decision anxiety.

Experts Featured in This Article

Caroline Fenkel , LCSW, DSW, is a mental health expert and chief clinical officer at Charlie Health.

What Is the Butterfly Effect?

"The butterfly effect suggests that small changes in a system can lead to significant and often unpredictable outcomes over time," Dr. Fenkel says. Though you may not think you're doing much to hit your goals or meet an expectation, it's a reminder that the small work you put in can actually be more monumental than you think.

An example of the butterfly effect could be meeting someone new at a party who works in the job industry you were hoping to transition to. Although your job search may have felt stagnant up to that point, meeting this person could eventually lead to a career opportunity that you never anticipated.

On a deeper level, the butterfly effect proves just how interconnected the world really is. "It encourages us to recognize the potential impact of our actions and approach our lives with greater awareness and intentionality," Dr. Fenkel says.

How to Implement the Butterfly Effect Into Your Life Without Spiraling From Decision Anxiety

Understanding the butterfly effect is empowering. It can help you take back control of your life if you ever feel like things aren't going your way. "It reminds us that our seemingly minor actions and decisions can have a far-reaching impact, reinforcing the idea that every choice matters," Dr. Fenkel says.

To implement this understanding into your life, Dr. Fenkel recommends approaching your decisions with mindfulness. "Consider the potential ripple effects of your actions," she says. Again, this isn't meant to make you overthink your decisions. Instead, "embrace this awareness to guide your decisions with intentionality and purpose."

If the butterfly effect does induce some anxiety, however, Dr. Fenkel suggests focusing on the values and intentions behind your decisions rather than obsessing over the possible outcomes. "Break down decisions into manageable steps, and remember that while you can't predict every outcome, you can control how you respond to them," she adds.

Even if something leads you to believe something wasn't the "right" decision or move, it's likely that it's all part of the bigger picture.

Taylor Andrews is a Balance editor at PS who specializes in topics relating to sex, relationships, dating, sexual health, mental health, and more.

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COMMENTS

The Butterfly Effect movie review (2004)
Chaos theory teaches us that small events can have enormous consequences. An opening title informs us that butterfly flapping its wings in Asia could result in a hurricane halfway around the world. Yes, although given the number of butterflies and the determination with which they flap their little wings, isn't it extraordinary how rarely that happens? "The Butterfly Effect" applies this ...
The Butterfly Effect
'The Butterfly Effect' is an intriguing look at the effects of changing events from your past, and as with any film involving time, things get messy.
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
The Butterfly Effect: Directed by Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber. With Ashton Kutcher, Melora Walters, Amy Smart, Elden Henson. Evan Treborn suffers blackouts during significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life by reading his journal.
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
The Butterfly Effect is a terrific thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The previews looked very intense and the whole film is pretty much like that. It held onto the audience right at the start and it didn't let go until the end. The plot is nothing new but the execution was very nice.
The Butterfly Effect
The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American science fiction thriller film written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber. It stars Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz, William Lee Scott, Elden Henson, Logan Lerman, Ethan Suplee, and Melora Walters. The title refers to the butterfly effect .
The Butterfly Effect Movie Review
Dark sci-fi thriller has lots of violence, sex, language. Read Common Sense Media's The Butterfly Effect review, age rating, and parents guide.
The Butterfly Effect
The Butterfly Effect - Metacritic. Summary Evan Treborn (Kutcher) has lost track of time. From an early age, crucial moments of his life have disappeared into a black hole of forgetting, his boyhood marred by a series of terrifying events he can't remember. Determined to do something now that he was incapable of doing then, Evan purposely ...
The Butterfly Effect
I sincerely wish Bress and Gruber had thought through the "butterfly effect" of young viewers absorbing their ruthless vision as much as they tried to process each of the film's many twists and turns. Elevate family time with our parent-friendly entertainment reviews!
The Butterfly Effect
Wildly uneven and not exactly high-quality entertainment, The Butterfly Effect has, nonetheless, weirdly turned out to be strangely memorable, especially for certain generation of moviegoers.
10 Best Movies about the Butterfly Effect
The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006) In the movie, Nick Larson, played by Eric Lively, stumbles upon a unique power, just like Ashton Kutcher's Treborn. By reading his late girlfriend Julie's journal, Nick can time travel. At first, Nick uses this power to fix things in his life and make his relationships better, but as he messes with the past ...
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
The Butterfly Effect R Sci-Fi Thriller Release Date January 22, 2004 Director Eric Bress , J. Mackye Gruber Cast Ashton Kutcher , Melora Walters , Amy Smart , Elden Henson , William Lee Scott ...
What was the original ending and why was it changed?
The Butterfly Effect (2004) has multiple and very different endings. Specifically there appears to be two factors on the main character's decision: Save his girlfriend's life Save his girlfriend's life and mother's life.
'The Butterfly Effect' 20 Years Later: Exploring the Dark Side of Time
The Butterfly Effect may not contain any out-right jump-scares or imagery traditionally associated with the horror genre, but that doesn't mean it doesn't tackle some downright scary ideas.
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
Visit the movie page for 'The Butterfly Effect' on Moviefone. Discover the movie's synopsis, cast details and release date. Watch trailers, exclusive interviews, and movie review. Your guide to ...
10 Movies Based On The Butterfly Effect Theory
And it delves deep into the butterfly effect theory as throughout the movie we are shown the parallel futures of various supportive characters, their respective futures influenced only by the literal passing of Lola, the main character, and based solely on her decisions and experiences.
10 Movies Based On The Butterfly Effect Theory
The butterfly effect theory comes into play when a narrator announces that we are about to examine both possible outcomes from this seemingly unimportant event.
The Butterfly Effect Review
The Butterfly Effect is a movie about changing the past rather than moving on. The whole movie, I just kept waiting for Kutcher to look at the camera and say, "You've just been Punk'd," and in a ...
The Butterfly Effect (2004) a good movie with a bad reputation
The butterfly effect is a Sci-fi thriller starting Ashton Kutcher. The film revolves around Kutcher's character very very troubled upbringing, and a unique ability he discovers. He attempts to use this ability to change things for the better, but results vary. I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it, that is as basic description as I can get without spoiling much. Spoilers will be below.
10 Things You've Never Noticed From The Butterfly Effect
The Butterfly Effect is a complex and though-provoking movie. Due to that, the movie has a lot of detail put into it that the audience did not notice.
Things In The Butterfly Effect You Only Notice After Watching ...
"The Butterfly Effect" follows the life of Evan Treborn. Here are the things in "The Butterfly Effect" you only notice after watching it more than once.
The Butterfly Effect collection (2004-2009)
The Butterfly Effect. 2004 1h 53m R. 7.6 (526K) Rate. 30 Metascore. Evan Treborn suffers blackouts during significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life by reading his journal. Director Eric Bress J. Mackye Gruber Stars Ashton Kutcher Amy Smart Melora Walters.
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
Of course, that's the REAL world. In the REEL world, "The Butterfly Effect" plays directly to our fantasies about changing the past. It involves "alternate universes," but without time-travel in the classic sense. Its method of branching into an alternate universe is one part "Somewhere in Time," one part "Frequency," and one part original approach.
What Is the Butterfly Effect? A Therapist Explains
It is said that when a butterfly flaps its wings in one region of the earth, it could alter the weather patterns in a completely different part of the world. Known as the "butterfly effect," the ...

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