First of all, I haven't laughed during a "thriller", much less a "sci-fi thriller", this much in years. They should have called the film "Those Damn Vibrating Letters". Or perhaps "Comedy Of Errors", because whichever new reality Ashton creates - it turns into a complete disaster, either for him, for someone else, or for everybody in his life. I can see Laurel & Hardy in Ashton's role, screwing up one time after another in a zany slapstick comedy. But Ashton in this role, and in a THRILLER?! I think not.
This film is a cross between the very good "Sliding Doors", in which alternate destinies are explored, and "12 Monkeys", which plays with time-travel. Just having one of these two premises is complex enough to handle for such lousy writers as the two who wrote "Butterfly Effect", but to have BOTH these ideas meshed into one script that is truly far too ambitious for writers of this caliber. "Sliding Doors" handles its theme with intelligence and control unlike "BE" which is frantic, and manic, and so overly dramatic that it quickly becomes funny instead of suspenseful. "12 Monkeys", which was a solid movie, stumbled on logic because time-travel plots rarely work because of the inherent traps they entail due to the (scientific) complexity of the idea..
The way the destinies of the four central characters changes with every one of Ashton's "experiments" often makes no sense. For example, we are lead to believe that Tommy would be a raving lunatic/psychopath in the first 2-3 realities, while a totally religious do-gooder in another! The writers actually want to make us believe that the way Stoltz brings up his son will make THAT much of a difference! Excuse me, but psychopaths are born, not created and Tommy's behaviour in the first half of the film leaves without any trace of a doubt that he IS a psychopath, and that means that Tommy cannot be a nice guy in ANY reality which Ashton creates.
"BE" is overly dramatic. Everything happens with extra weight. The girl is like De Sade's Justine, always being the victim, always being attacked, ruined, whatever. The movie wants us to feel for her FINE but why the pathetic exaggerations? Examples: 1) she gets blown up by the dynamite: this is like a scene out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon! I.e. funny because Ashton does his best to correct things and he just ends up blowing up people!!! (Or himself, later on sorry, but I thought this was absolutely hilarious); 2) when Ashton visits, seeing her for the first time in 7 years, he observes her working in a diner, and what does he see??? Within seconds she manages to drop her tray, and then gets pinched in the a** by a customer! Talk about clichés! Talk about slapstick comedy! Talk about OVERLY DRAMATIZING THINGS! 3) when Ashton finds her working as a whore: I mean, fine, so she has hit rock-bottom in that particular reality/experiment, but they over-did it, what with the make-up, and her attitude and everything. Why the OVER-DRAMATIZATION? It would have been enough to show her as a prostitute; there was no need to make her look as the most MISERABLE PROSTITUTE IN THE WORLD! Other silly things in the movie? Here we go: 1) when the black teacher shows Ashton's Mom the drawing he (supposedly) did; all they do is comment on the content of the drawing no-one mentions just how ultra-talented Ashton would have to be to draw like that in primary school! 2) when Ashton meets his father for the first time, guess what happens? His father dies! Talk about drama! You see, they couldn't write a script in which his Dad gets killed on their 3rd or 4th meeting, oh no it had to be on the very 1ST visit. Why? Because that's how real DRAMA works at least according to the nitwits who wrote this silly script. 3) it is never explained why it takes Ashton 7 YEARS to finally visit the girl whom he is supposed to love so much; she even ASKS him this, but neither her nor the viewer get ANY answer! 4) Ashton's mother getting so sick in a later "experiment" (the one when he blows himself up so spectacularly), and then later his mother DOESN'T get sick in another experiment when Ashton kills the girl! Wouldn't that event and her son's subsequent demise as a nut-case be enough to make her sick, too??? 5) Ashton's fat, Gothic college room-mate: now, why would they include that character? It only made the movie less serious. Either you make a serious thriller, or you make a teen romp; make up your mind.
Now for the funniest moments, the ones that had me laughing very loudly indeed. The scene in which Tommy beats up somebody in the cinema is HILARIOUS. This little twerp (i.e. the young actor Jesse James(!) who plays him) just looks funny acting like an adult ultra-psychopath! Like a 12 year-old Joe Pesci! But hands-down the funniest part of the film is the entire part in the jail. There are so many over-the-top, silly things happening to Ashton in jail, so much cliché prison-movie stuff going on, that it almost seemed like something out of a ZAZ film! Hilarious! Oh, yes, and Ashton is a bad actor. Almost forgot that.
Everyone in the film is over-acting, over-reacting, everything is over-dramatic. I'm sure many people thought this was a brilliant picture, but I think many of them haven't seen similarly-themed and better movies, so they thought "how original!". Original only in its silliness and absurdity. Not to mention far-fetchedness. If a circus clown could take the shape of a movie, it would be "The Butterfly Effect".
This film is a cross between the very good "Sliding Doors", in which alternate destinies are explored, and "12 Monkeys", which plays with time-travel. Just having one of these two premises is complex enough to handle for such lousy writers as the two who wrote "Butterfly Effect", but to have BOTH these ideas meshed into one script that is truly far too ambitious for writers of this caliber. "Sliding Doors" handles its theme with intelligence and control unlike "BE" which is frantic, and manic, and so overly dramatic that it quickly becomes funny instead of suspenseful. "12 Monkeys", which was a solid movie, stumbled on logic because time-travel plots rarely work because of the inherent traps they entail due to the (scientific) complexity of the idea..
The way the destinies of the four central characters changes with every one of Ashton's "experiments" often makes no sense. For example, we are lead to believe that Tommy would be a raving lunatic/psychopath in the first 2-3 realities, while a totally religious do-gooder in another! The writers actually want to make us believe that the way Stoltz brings up his son will make THAT much of a difference! Excuse me, but psychopaths are born, not created and Tommy's behaviour in the first half of the film leaves without any trace of a doubt that he IS a psychopath, and that means that Tommy cannot be a nice guy in ANY reality which Ashton creates.
"BE" is overly dramatic. Everything happens with extra weight. The girl is like De Sade's Justine, always being the victim, always being attacked, ruined, whatever. The movie wants us to feel for her FINE but why the pathetic exaggerations? Examples: 1) she gets blown up by the dynamite: this is like a scene out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon! I.e. funny because Ashton does his best to correct things and he just ends up blowing up people!!! (Or himself, later on sorry, but I thought this was absolutely hilarious); 2) when Ashton visits, seeing her for the first time in 7 years, he observes her working in a diner, and what does he see??? Within seconds she manages to drop her tray, and then gets pinched in the a** by a customer! Talk about clichés! Talk about slapstick comedy! Talk about OVERLY DRAMATIZING THINGS! 3) when Ashton finds her working as a whore: I mean, fine, so she has hit rock-bottom in that particular reality/experiment, but they over-did it, what with the make-up, and her attitude and everything. Why the OVER-DRAMATIZATION? It would have been enough to show her as a prostitute; there was no need to make her look as the most MISERABLE PROSTITUTE IN THE WORLD! Other silly things in the movie? Here we go: 1) when the black teacher shows Ashton's Mom the drawing he (supposedly) did; all they do is comment on the content of the drawing no-one mentions just how ultra-talented Ashton would have to be to draw like that in primary school! 2) when Ashton meets his father for the first time, guess what happens? His father dies! Talk about drama! You see, they couldn't write a script in which his Dad gets killed on their 3rd or 4th meeting, oh no it had to be on the very 1ST visit. Why? Because that's how real DRAMA works at least according to the nitwits who wrote this silly script. 3) it is never explained why it takes Ashton 7 YEARS to finally visit the girl whom he is supposed to love so much; she even ASKS him this, but neither her nor the viewer get ANY answer! 4) Ashton's mother getting so sick in a later "experiment" (the one when he blows himself up so spectacularly), and then later his mother DOESN'T get sick in another experiment when Ashton kills the girl! Wouldn't that event and her son's subsequent demise as a nut-case be enough to make her sick, too??? 5) Ashton's fat, Gothic college room-mate: now, why would they include that character? It only made the movie less serious. Either you make a serious thriller, or you make a teen romp; make up your mind.
Now for the funniest moments, the ones that had me laughing very loudly indeed. The scene in which Tommy beats up somebody in the cinema is HILARIOUS. This little twerp (i.e. the young actor Jesse James(!) who plays him) just looks funny acting like an adult ultra-psychopath! Like a 12 year-old Joe Pesci! But hands-down the funniest part of the film is the entire part in the jail. There are so many over-the-top, silly things happening to Ashton in jail, so much cliché prison-movie stuff going on, that it almost seemed like something out of a ZAZ film! Hilarious! Oh, yes, and Ashton is a bad actor. Almost forgot that.
Everyone in the film is over-acting, over-reacting, everything is over-dramatic. I'm sure many people thought this was a brilliant picture, but I think many of them haven't seen similarly-themed and better movies, so they thought "how original!". Original only in its silliness and absurdity. Not to mention far-fetchedness. If a circus clown could take the shape of a movie, it would be "The Butterfly Effect".