Ashton Kutcher is Evan Treborn, a college student who finds that he has a unique ability to travel into his past and alter prior events, thus enabling him to rearrange his future. The story opens in childhood with Evan (played by John Patrick Amedori) and three friends—Lenny, Kayleigh, and her brother, Tommy—getting into lots of mischief and, frighteningly, avoiding being videotaped naked by Kayleigh and Tommy's drunken, sadistic father. It also doesn't help that Evan draws weird pictures, scares his mother with kitchen knives, and experiences frequent blackouts. A psychiatrist suggests that Evan keep a daily journal of his activities, and as the weeks and months pass so does the size of Evan's journal collection. When a childhood prank by the four children goes horribly awry, it changes the course of everyone's collective destinies. Flash forward to present day and we find Evan an honors student in college and seven years free of any blackouts. But running into Kayleigh (Amy Smart, Rat Race), who works as a waitress and has an otherwise abysmal existence, restarts Evan's condition. When Evan finds out that she's killed herself, he attempts to head into the past to save Kayleigh from her fate. Thus begins a weird, strange adventure as Evan maneuvers his past and present in a desperate bid to make everything right again.
The Butterfly Effect and The Butterfly Effect 2 do their best to explore the possibilities and dangers of altering the past in order to shape a better future. What may seem like innocent meddling at first may actually result in drastic and horrific consequences in the future. And do you really want that? Do you?
First up is The Butterfly Effect starring Ashton Kutcher. It’s about a guy who has had blackouts throughout his childhood where he doesn’t remember things he’s done. Luckily, he writes what he did during those blackouts in a journal. As an adult, he finds the journal and is able to piece together what took place in the blackouts. And then things get a little crazy as he soon realizes that he has the power to alter events that took place in the blackouts by going back in time, thus altering the present and catapulting himself into unknown future consequences. Yikes!
The Blu-ray edition includes Theatrical and The Director’s Cut, plus includes the following special features:
The Science and the Psychology of The Chaos Theory; The History and Allure of Time Travel; Director’s Cut Fact Track; Director’s Cut Commentary with Co-Directors and Co-Screenwriters Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber; The Creative Process; Visual Effects; Storyboard Gallery; and Deleted/Alternate Scenes.
Using the same basic concept, The Butterfly Effect 2 gives hero Nick (Eric Lively) the ability to change the past and save his girlfriend who recently died in a car accident. But Nick can’t stop with that one event, and he soon starts to alter several events from his past, which in turn leads to unforeseen destruction and danger in his present and his future.
Special features include audio commentary; and the featurette Altering Reality: On the Set of The Butterfly Effect 2; and the trailer.
Both films are cleverly done and present intriguing perspectives on time travel and altering the past. I liked the original better than the sequel, but the second was also enjoyable and worth checking out.