When movie children begin drawing violent pictures and scaring their mothers with large kitchen knives, they usually end up being possessed by the devil. Young Evan Treborn, however, has a different excuse -- a mysterious mental ailment, inherited from his institutionalized father, causes him to black out at stressful moments, completely erasing the situations from his memory. However, his real problems begin when he finally figures out how to recall his memories.
Such is the setup of "The Butterfly Effect," starring and produced by Ashton Kutcher, the star of "Punk'd," "That '70s Show," "Dude Where's My Car?" and "Demi Moore's Way Younger Boyfriend." The film was written and directed by the team that brought us "Final Destination 2" and also stars lesser-known actors Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz and Ethan Suplee, among others.
Though it is soon clear that little Evan is not the spawn of the devil, a convincing case could be made for neighbor Tommy Miller. Son of a child pornographer (Eric Stoltz), Tommy talks other children into putting dynamite in mailboxes, hits people with two-by-fours and burns pets alive. Someone should have noticed something was wrong when he began twisting the heads off of his twin sister, Kayleigh's, dolls.
Evan, though present at all these events, cannot remember them. He blacks out the episodes from his mind and wakes up completely confused and disoriented. Horrified by these sadistic episodes and troubled by Evan's resulting memory lapses, Mrs. Treborn (Melora Walters) decides to move the family away, thus saving Evan, and by extension cutting off Kayleigh from the one person who actually cares about her.
Flash forward to college. Evan is now Ashton Kutcher, he's gone seven years without a blackout, and he's a top student majoring in psychology with a particular interest in memory research. In the midst of a drunken hookup, Evan inadvertently discovers how to revisit his past memories -- he rereads aloud from the journals he's been keeping from a very young age (a doctor's therapy idea), reaches a passage centering around a blacked-out memory, and immediately the screen starts to get blurry and shaky and, bam, Evan is transported back to the repressed episode which he now has the power to change.
Unfortunately, rereading aloud that last passage doesn't allow one to go back and alter such a ridiculous plot device. It's almost refreshing that the film doesn't even attempt to fabricate some sort of overblown scientific explanation for this completely implausible feat. It's probably better to just overlook this admittedly senseless gimmick, but the idea is still pretty absurd.
Deeply disturbed by the images he is finally remembering, Evan returns to his old neighborhood, confronts the now-grown Kayleigh (Amy Smart) and upsets her so badly she commits suicide. Realizing he now has the power to alter the past, Evan pledges to use this ability to improve the present and save Kayleigh's life.
Unfortunately, every tiny change Evan makes has huge unforeseen consequences in his affected present. After his child-self commands Kayleigh's pervert father never to touch her again, Evan wakes up to a very different reality
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