A butterfly flaps it’s wings and an entire theater walks out.
Tonight we were treated to a private sneek peek of The Butterfly Effect, Ashton Kutcher’s first experiment with dramatic acting.

The plot centers on chaos theory – the idea that one can find meaning in any random sort of data or events. Mathematically, it may also mean that one would receive random results from a rather structured equation. Socially, it may mean that any miniscule event spurs a chain reaction that affects the future. Most commonly, chaos theory is stated as the butterfly effect or that, the flapping of a single butterfly’s wings in Tokyo creates a tornado in Texas. But I digress.

The Butterfly Effect takes the theory one step farther and stars Kutcher as a boy who tries to right the wrongs of his childhood and future by going back in time and altering the outcomes of certain situations. To his dismay, a simple change creates radical, sometimes unpredicted results.

Desperate to see whether Kutcher would be able to make the jump from comedy to drama, I was a bit surprised to see that the movie was more of a thriller than anything. Unfortunately, I don’t know whether the biggest disappointment was the movie or the theater’s inability to roll a reel correctly, which led to a more than 30 minute break after just 30 minutes of the movie.

In my humble opinion, Kutcher looks like he’ll make the transition just fine. He’s a talented actor, just starting to spread his wings. Unfortunately, he picked a weak script and cast of characters to fly with.

The first portion of the movie is spent developing the plot through his childhood, displaying sometimes random, but always shocking and disturbing images of a tormented past. I got the impression that there was too much information to develop the plot and the production crew was running short on reel and money, so nothing was left for the viewer to infer over time – they’d rather spell it out for you and move on to the next scene. Apparently two reviewers and promotions people felt the same, because they walked out of the film shortly before us and the other two thirds of the theater.

I was a little disappointed to read the Amazon.com reviews – I don’t know that the movie is worthy of such praise. Granted, I didn’t view the whole thing and had I the chance, I might go back in time and sit through the whole thing, now that I realize there’s a select few who thought kindly of the movie. Nevertheless, I’m a sucker and will probably rent the flick just to see how it ends.

posted by paula 11:09 PM