Donnie Darko light

The Butterfly Effect

Actually I’ve watched this movie a few days ago (and to be exact, I am currently in the middle of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, because last time, I didn’t continue watching it after dinner). It’s quite difficult to describe my feelings towards this film. Because in the end, this film did not make me feel anything (haha).

The title says it – all in all, this movie was a lot like Donnie Darko. A young, good-looking protagonist, a girl he wants to protect, a sacrifice at the end, time travelling – everything. However, Kayleigh (oh, I love the sound of this name… it’s like “Imogen” – you would never have expected this accumulation of weird sounds to be a woman’s name) is blonde and slightly stupid while Gretchen is much cuter and fragile. Ashton Kutcher can’t be taken seriously as well (even though he didn’t play that bad in this one) and he doesn’t have even one ounce of Jake Gyllenhaal’s sex appeal which consists of an incredibly charming smile and intelligent looks. The actors are probably the reason why Donnie and Gretchen’s relationship were very touching and cute (and it was so nice to see them kiss *tihi*) while Evan and Kayleigh were just boring.
However, unlike most other people (I guess), I liked the ending. One aspect was that the Oasis song made me feel touched at that scene. The other is that I really think it was a good conclusion: The ending made clear that Evan realized that he is not supposed to be together with her and that it probably should remain that way. That’s a nice and somehow beautiful message in my opinion. The other ending (the director’s cut one) was absolutely gorgeous too. I can understand that it doesn’t leave the same bittersweet touch as the final version, but it’s much cooler and to most fans probably the better ending – after all, the producer feared that the director’s cut ending was too cruel and forced the writers to change it.

The movie itself was good and I was about to give it a rather good rating, because it was much more interesting than the other movies I’ve seen recently. But then I remembered how I felt while watching Donnie Darko: I sat right before the TV and couldn’t move my eyes away, I felt totally sucked into that world and oh my, how much I loved that suspense! The Butterfly Effect was nothing like that, that’s why I will probably always remember it as similar to Donnie Darko, but not half as good.

A little note about the logical problems of the movie: Who cares. In my opinion, the movie did a good job to illustrate the interesting subject of time travel and its questions, consequences and possibilities despite all the exaggerated, trashy and unlogical storylines. “Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo” (The Girl who leapt through Time), another movie I’ve watched this Tuesday with Milkmaster, was not half as good at this. But then again, I think Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo was a children’s movie and not to be taken seriously aside from its stunning animation quality.

I still recommend it though – Hollywood is able to do a good movie on the line between mainstream and indie.