Science fiction meets psychological drama in Eric Bress and J Mackye Gruber's The Butterfly Effect, "so head-slappingly silly you may even enjoy it." Ashton Kutcher stars (so that was their first mistake) as a dude who, like, suffers from blackouts and stuff. Turns out it's not the abuse of illegal substances that's to blame, but some sort of time-warp situation and repressed memories of sexual abuse. So not trivialising serious issues then. (You didn't need a time machine to figure out this was going to be a flop.)
On A Wing And A Prayer
The Creative Process is a long-winded exercise in which writing/directing team Eric Bress and J Mackye Gruber attempt to convince the world that there was a string of coherent thought behind this scattered piece of filmmaking. They also sing the praises of Ashton Kutcher, which is fair enough since this is the first time he's actually scored some genuine laughs on screen - shame it was in a drama though. Of his own performance, Kutcher remarks, "I hope people will say, 'Wow, this kid can do stuff.'" Seriously, after watching this film, the next move should be Kutcher and Keanu in Dude, Where's Our Brain Cell?.
The Chaos Theory boasts a much higher IQ with assorted Ivy League bods discussing the psychoanalytical interpretation of a physics theory, which suggests the flapping of butterfly wings could eventually culminate in a typhoon on the other side of the world. Unfortunately this highbrow debate takes a nosedive into the banal when one of the PhD's sums up with a hypothesis that: "S*** happens!" Still, the Freudians help shed light on why, for instance, breast-feeding into late childhood could eventually see you hitched to a woman twice your age with plastic boobs.
The Time Travel featurette is less edifying. Again it delves into the psychology behind our fascination with the concept of time travel, but crucially fails to explain the manner in which we might travel back and erase the memory of having seen The Butterfly Effect.
Flying Without Wings
The last of the featurettes explains how the use of visual effects helped to create the sense of "shimmering" and "vibration" to replicate the flutter of a butterfly's wings. It's a very drawn out affair at over 15 minutes in length - especially when all they really had to do was rock the camera from side to side a little bit.
Nine deleted scenes are mostly expositional, although the optional commentary by Bress and Gruber is worth the price of purchase alone. They explain that they were forced to make a cut because of Kutcher's bad acting, or as they put it, "He seemed out of context with where the story was at... he was too happy." In one of two versions of an alternate ending - or "happy, sappy ending" as they label it - they have another dig at Ashton and co-star Amy Smart: "They were improving," says Eric, "and it wasn't that strong."
They drop yet more hilarious clangers in their wisecracking feature commentary for this directors' cut of the movie - guaranteed to "unleash all that bad taste" which the studio brass disallowed the first time around. Apparently the thing about the child porn was only the half of it. Brace yourselves: The Butterfly Effect is liable to cause a flap on DVD.
EXTRA FEATURES
