The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect. I remember my friends taking me to the cinema to see this when I was in my 20's. At first I rolled my eyes. It didn't have van damme, it didn't have arnie, it didn't have stallone, and it didn't have willis; that means it was a write off for me. But because it was a free night out I was willing to give it a chance. I mean, it couldn't be that bad, right?

Well, I'd refer to this as a classic now. I guess I can say that since I'm creeping up to my 50's.

But this film blew me away from start to finish and I was surprised at the magnitude that it kept me captivated all the way through. It was an absolute monster of a film, but had a relatively small advertisement budget, I mean I had never heard of it before, so I was surprised this wasn't on almost every other TV advert at the time.

We start off with young Evan, he lives with his mother on her own and he suffers blackouts at significant parts of his life. And these parts of his life are very significant, like for example he blacks out when one of his supposed friends sets fire to his dog.

Worried, his mother takes him to a head doctor, who notes that his father suffered from the same phenomena and suggests that they couldn't find the cause with his father either, and that's why he is locked up in a secure facility.

As the film progresses Evan starts doing out of character things. For example he blacks out and creates a very violent and threatening picture at school which looks as if it had been drawn by someone with much better skills than his age group. That's when his mother suggests that he go and visit his father to see if this will help him in any way.

But it doesn't, Evan blacks out and wakes up as his father is trying to strangle him. The guard whacks him on the head and ends up killing him. So now, he truly is fatherless.

His friends are no better on his mentality either. Ruled by a vicious drunk and paedo dad, who consistently beats up his son and molests his daughter, Evan's friends are consistently throwing his life into disarray and his mother ends up taking Evan far away as one of them ends up torching his dog.

After they say their goodbyes, we skip to college where Evan is a top learner and really studies well at class. It seems the move has had a positive effect on him. Then, he finds his old journals after talking to his friend in his dorm.

He is whisked back to his childhood and transformed back into his old self. From what's happening it seems as if Evan is actually in his childhood blackouts. Time travel! Boom.

Anyway, this was one of the most underrated films of the 00's. And I thoroughly recommend this one to anyone that likes a good time travel drama.