The Butterfly Effect

This is a fun revisit, a film I absolutely loved when it released. Vividly remember seeing it in the cinema due to my love of Ashton at the time, but in later years he just became a shady, shady guy. This is still a great film, but it also feels a lot like one of those "you had to be there at the time" films. I can see people watching this now not being too into it with its consistent-but-incosistent rules and early 2000s tropes. It's a style of film that has been done a lot and in better ways since, but seeing it back when it came out it did feel like a standout back in 04 and fits in that world of excellent films like Ghost World & Garden State. The pros: - a couple of excellent scenes transitions, they happen right near each other and don't seem to happen again after but it's a real shame the director didn't seem to do much after, there was good potential there. - great use of colour saturation, never noticed how the world's had different colour grading depending on how positive they seem at the time before. - the score had some great moments and the licenced soundtrack was great too. Absolutely best use of Oasis ever (which isn't hard) but damn if that ending doesn't hit hard. - great casting for younger versions of characters. Cons: - directors cut seemingly being the main option for a copy these days. Fuck the womb ending. - the transfer for the Blu-ray isn't great. The dark contrasty look is well suited but there's too many crushed blacks and inconsistent picture quality. I'd love a good 4k restoration of this, it has a solid visual identity that could pop. - as with all the films of this era, the language used. Ashton, to his credit, did some great work in this. Goth Ethan Suplee is iconic. Amy Smart had some great moments.