Movie Review: The Butterfly Effectby Scot

This past weekend I went to see the The Butterfly Effect. It was an experience I wish I could forget. This dilapidated farce was written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, the same team that brought us the box office flop Final Destination II. The plot is about a young man (Ashton Kutcher) who is struggling to deal with his troubled youth and finds a way to go back in time and attempt to change things for the better. Unfortunately for him, every time he changes something it only makes things worse. The whole concept for this film has been used before, and Bress’s mundane screenwriting fails to breathe any new life into it. He attempts to shock us into thinking this is a good movie by using such coarse thematic elements as child porn and prison rape. Eric Bress throws in a hidden moral about the evils of sororities, as if he is trying to do penance for making such a bad movie by turning it into an MTV infomercial for equality. He tries to spruce up his trite pandering by splicing plenty of unnecessary female nudity into the film like some horny thirteen-year-old boy. Mr. Bress should do us all a favor and never attempt to write/direct a movie again.
 
The acting in this film was nothing special either. Ashton Kutcher, who plays the lead role, can act just fine for movies like Dude, Where’s My Car?, but when it comes to acting a mature role with real emotions, he falls flat on his face. While none of the other actors did a bad job in this movie, their performances were nothing to cheer about. After leaving the theater I wished I could go back in time like the protagonist and warn myself not to see this movie.