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Techtite's DVD Reviews! |
"Sorry, but when you must set a dog on fire to keep an audience from laughing out loud, it's time to confess that this script should've been a comedy. If you find yourself setting fire to poor little fluffy to keep an audience from laughing, why even try?" --from the review ------------- Sidebar :: ------------- The best of times (traveled)... Here's 5 time travel stories I thought of when writing this review, off the top of my head: Star Trek: "City on the Edge of Forever." Kirk goes back in time, meets one Edith Keeler, only to fall in love with her. Trouble is, if she lives, time shifts to the point of Nazi Germany engulfing the world. Does he follow his heart, or his conscience? Dr. Who: "Genesis of the Daleks." The good Doctor goes back to when the evil Daleks were first created. However, as the Doctor ponders when nearly committing Dalek- genocide: is this the right thing to do, given how many formerly warring worlds would be united thanks to this common foe? He inevitably makes the best choice in the long run...and for ratings! Time After Time. Jack the Ripper uses H.G. Wells' time machine to escape to 1979 San Francisco. What makes this story relevant to this review is in its far superior love story, when Wells falls in love with a 1979 feminist, who is, as dramatic suspense would have it, the next victim on Jack's hit list. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Aren't you sick of movie critics using "looks like a video game" to insult most movies? I know I am, all the more so when playing the latest Prince of Persia game. This story about altering the flow of time is far more imaginative and inspired than most movies these days. Check my review and see why. Star Trek: "Yesterday's Enterprise." One of my favorite trek stories from "Next Generation" years has the Enterprise-C escape an ill-fated battle against Klingon enemies of the past. However, does this ship need to go back in time and be destroyed, so that the future can be a better place...? ----------------- Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted! ------------------
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The Butterfly Effect
Click Picture to Order the "director's cut" of this film. A Techtite ReviewAs Always, a review of The Film and The DVD (extras)! The Film: You want flashbacks? I'll give you one. The year: 1990, when a scriptwriter had just offered an uneven dramatic script, called "$3,000." Two decisions were made that would change this otherwise B-grade dramatic script, forevermore. One, the title was too incongruous; change it! Two, the extremely laughable premise --of a billionaire hiring a hooker to be his "girlfriend" for one week-- was, quite obviously, best suited as a comedy. The result was Pretty Woman: the film that thrust Julia Roberts into super-stardom, and made a cool 178 million in ticket sales in the U.S. alone. What might have happened had someone stuck to the original plan, to make a laughable premise into a drama...? Ask yourself this when watching The Butterfly Effect. Here's the story: Evan (Ashton Kutcher) had a traumatic childhood, always wanting to go back in time and change a slew of mistakes. He soon learns he has such powers, and uses them, foremost, to save the life of his childhood sweetheart, Kayleigh (played by Amy Smart, one of the most sadly under-appreciated actresses of our time). He succeeds in saving her, but only...sort of. See, there's this chaos theory called "the butterfly effect," where a butterfly flaps its wings in America and suddenly there's a hurricane in China. Um...guys? There are millions of butterflies in America! If such a chaotic theory was actually true, wouldn't China be underwater by now?!? The plausibility of this theory is immaterial. The point is: no sooner does Evan change one thing for the better, than a ripple effect in time makes something else in the future far worse. In one future, Kayleigh is a college student though it's still not a "perfect" future. In another future, Kayleigh becomes a street prostitute, so no that future isn't too chipper, either. This isn't even getting into Evan's own altered life, which includes jail time, or worse. In fact, in this film, every change he makes only makes things worse. Can he truly change time for the better...? It's important at this point of the review to say that I did not dislike this film because of its implausibility. I faced such implausibility in a similar film four years back, Frequency, and liked it (intriguing, when you note that the writer of that film was one of this film's producers). I similarly liked Paycheck recently, which as long as you suspend belief, is an amusing matinee romp. I could not find myself liking this film as much, though the how and why to this opinion is a finely woven carpet of little mistakes that should never have been. Mistake #1: the concept here is, allegedly, that any subtle change makes a big difference. Apparently, someone got the adjectives mixed up: these are major moments in Evan's life, which lead to minor changes in the future. It would be one thing if he swatted a bug and suddenly humankind was extinct. Instead, Evan goes back in time to change very impactful moments of his childhood: child abuse, the horrific death of a pet dog, and even second degree murder. Yet such admittedly major changes don't lead to any changes to the future, outside of the lives of Evan, Kayleigh, and two other kids they used to know, named Lenny and Tom. These aren't subtle moments which lead to big differences; if anything, the reverse is true. Mistake #2: at least one-third of the film does not star Ashton Kutcher, nor Amy Smart. Since Evan goes back in time to change his childhood, the story flip-flops, to when he was 8 (as played by Logan Lerman) and 13 (John Patrick Amedori). The actors chosen for these childhood scenes are admirable, though couldn't this story have been better, had Evan gone back in time, say, 5 years, so that the lead stars were not so often off-screen...? Seeing the lead character jump from adult to 8 year old and back again --several times!-- is a bit distracting. Mistake #3: Shouldn't this laughably unlikely premise be used for a comedy? Ashton Kutcher is best known from Dude, Where's My Car? Amy Smart is best known from the under-appreciated cult hit, Road Trip. What a riotous sci-fi comedy this could have been! Sure, seeing Kayleigh change from a college sorority brat into a street prostitute is supposed to be dramatic, but...is it? Likewise for a fat guy in a spiked haircut; a sight that could've been a far more effective visual gag than a "dramatic" plot device. This could have been a very funny comedy, not an unintentionally funny drama. Consider a comparison you'll read a lot: A Halloween episode of The Simpsons, where Homer goes back in time via a misassembled toaster. He swats a mosquito in The Stone Age, and returns to find his obnoxious neighbor is now a ruthless dictator! Homer then tries to change time again, only to kill a fish and make the future rain donuts. After several failed attempts, he finally reaches a future where everything is normal, except his family now eats food via froglike tongues; "Close enough," shrugs Homer. See; this is the type of story that a crackpot theory like "the butterfly effect" should inspire: comedy. That isn't to say that writers & directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber don't try to force a square peg into a round hole. An incessant amount of child abuse, animal cruelty, and other sickening scenes are added into play, to try and coerce us into thinking this laughable script isn't so laughable. Sorry, but when you must set a dog on fire to keep an audience from laughing out loud, it's time to confess that this script should've been a comedy. If you find yourself setting fire to poor little fluffy to keep an audience from laughing, why even try? It can be said that this film has one saving grace in that it doesn't try for the dramatic finale. While some may find the ending predictable it does not suck with the intensity of a thousand suns; unlike, say, the prior year's Terminator 3 or The Undisputed Worst Ending of All Time, Se7en. Oddly enough there is a sort of "what was the point of this?" feeling to the ending, and yet I found it to be the best ending possible, in a script that was fighting against the wind as it is. Would I recommend seeing this film? Well, I could not give it a thumbs- up, though yeah, when offered on your local pay cable station I'd more than give this a look. It's not a horrible film exactly; it just isn't very good. What's worse; it could've been so much better. Imagine what sort of pratfalls could've entailed, had Evan had a life that included rapturous comedy instead of dogs catching fire. This film should've been a comedy, period. As a drama, it just doesn't work.
The DVD: Sadly, the only real bonus of the DVD version is that it is a director's cut, with an alternate ending. Even more sadly; that ending sucks worse than the original. Let's just tack a one and a half star grade onto this film and move on.
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