Eric Bress & J. Mackye Gruber
The Butterfly Effect

THE REVIEW

It was curiosity that drove me towards "The Butterfly Effect," a feature film I had heard so much about. So, I decided to get it, and right after watching it, I was puzzled: how can a film like this receive positive reviews? How can some critics compare it to a film like "Seven"?

The film was born from the collaboration between filmmakers Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, who were already collaborators on films like "Blunt" and "Final Destination 2", plus other "synchronous" works that the two will create after this film. It is based on the story "A Sound of Thunder" by writer Ray Bradbury.

Bress and Gruber's work focuses on the character of Evan (Ashton Kutcher), a boy who, from a young age, exhibits memory lapses, fainting spells, and various ailments. As the years go by, and after various youthful accidents that have caused him further harm, Evan tries to understand the reason for his memory lapses. Not content, he does not stop there and decides to change all past events to improve the conditions for himself and his friends, as they have all been in some way touched by certain childhood experiences.

Watching the first sequences of the film, everything seems to be going well, with the psychological element taking on (at least in part) the most significant role within the initial narrative. Then it's complete chaos: gripped by who knows what delusions of grandeur (or perhaps due to a lack of ideas), the two directors flounder in a semi-scholarly thriller with continuous time jumps, with a story that falls apart, and with the entire representation unraveling minute by minute. The screenplay (also edited by Bress and Gruber) is on the verge of grotesque, as are some characters that appear in the second half of the film and as are some scenes, truly ridiculous. All the good ideas that could have been drawn from a story like this, all possible plots are completely destroyed by decidedly inelegant choices. The decision to steer the story towards the usual American college, with the usual clichés, is the negative jewel of a feature film that collapses on itself, also due to insufficient acting performances.

"The Butterfly Effect" is a rickety creature that wants to seem heavily psychological but instead only results in being heavy. Very few are the insights that can be considered positive.