The
Poffyfly
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The
Teen Model Effect.
by
Jon Dunmore © 14 Apr 2006.
Ashton
Kutcher courts credibility by sporting a beard that looks
like the direct result of losing his shaver and sleeping in
his clothes for two days. It worked for George Michael.
As
far as I can gather from The Butterfly Effect's totally
illogical storyline, a teen model time travels backwards
to rectify sins of the past so that in the "present"
he can hook up with another teen model.
Noble? No. Hot? Definitely.
We
must remember whom this wiffle of a movie was created for
- girls. But despite its attempt to sabotage itself by casting
Kutcher in the lead role, this thriller succeeds as a very
effective and entertaining film. Directors/writers Eric
Bress and J. Mackye Gruber move the action at the pace of
a car salesman's pitch, and twice as slick, designed to
specifically deceive your brain through the muddled logic
and irreconcilable paradoxes for exactly the length of the
movie. After that, you're on your own...
The
actual "butterfly effect" is a chaos theory syllogism
(attributed to an early pioneer of chaos theory, Edward
Lorenz), which posits that "the flapping of a butterfly's
wing will create a disturbance that in the chaotic motion
of the atmosphere will become amplified eventually to change
the large scale atmospheric motion, so that the long term
behavior becomes impossible to forecast." (Michael
Cross, Professor of Theoretical Physics, CalTech). Put more
simply, "the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil
may set off a tornado in Texas." (ibid.)
Consequently, The Butterfly Effect movie is based
on chaos theory in the same way that Achy Breaky Heart
is based on Bohemian Rhapsody.
But
the notion that the filmmakers attempt to impart is simple
enough. Whenever Evan Treborn (Kutcher) jolts himself backwards
in time to try to change one thing for the better (to ultimately
end up with his dream girl, Kayleigh, played with varying
degrees of conviction by Amy Smart), his action sets in
motion a wave of unpredictability for the "present"
that he returns to.
Or
at least, unpredictability for the principal cast. Evan,
his mother and his teen friends change dramatically whilst
every other person in their orbits is more or less unaffected.
They don't seem to have made any new acquaintances, business
partners or lovers along the way who influenced their lives
- these few teens only seem to have affected each other
and the outside world just came along for the ride.
So
the world DOES revolve around teen models!
The
method by which Evan achieves his temporal travels is by
reading his childhood diaries; read a certain page with
the concentration of a teen model and he is jolted back
to that point in time, as per Einstein's Theorem of Teen
Model Time Travel. Upon finding a mess in the "present"
after each backwards jaunt, Evan steps up his jaunts to
the point where we are watching him with the expectancy
of another episode of Gilligan's Island; that is,
the serious nature of his unique power dissipates and we
wonder how that crazy Gilligan is going to mess up THIS
week. Ultimately, the plot goes past chaos theory and straight
to chaos.
Weighted
issues like pedophilia (shabby Eric Stoltz making a cameo
as a child molester), letter bombs (remember the good old
days when not even a bomb placed in your letterbox would
make you puss out and cry "terrorist!"?), animal
abuse and baby-killing keep the movie above the fluff level.
Some would say below the decency level.
The
kids playing younger versions of the teen models are such
fine actors that, in a fit of disassociation, we incorrectly
attribute their talent to the overall character of Evan,
Kutcher being only the eldest incarnation, but nonetheless
garnering our misplaced respect. Mediocre actor as read,
there's no doubt that Kutcher is on a different plane of
maturity when it comes to his professional life: an ex-Bioengineering
student from Iowa, the 6'2" ex-model is a producer,
executive producer, writer, restaurant owner - and married
to the hands-down-hottest Brat Packer (Demi Moore) who was
married to the hands-down-hottest action hero in Hollywood,
Bruce Willis. Dude, where's my bitchslap?
The
fact that Evan does end up performing a noble deed which
leaves him Without The Girl is a brave choice for a Chick
Flick of Kutcherian proportions, raising the sobriety level
of the film even higher. (The director's cut inserts a very
disturbing ending indeed: Evan goes back to the womb for
his noble deed - how he got there, his fetus not having
made any diary entries, is a question for the chaos theory
mathematicians to answer. Anyone got Edward Lorenz's number?)
If
taken at face value, Butterfly Effect is a crafty,
hip, infuriatingly enjoyable jaunt.
If taken with a shred of logic, it retains about as much
credibility as - well, Ashton Kutcher.
END
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This review on imdb
Cheaper By The Dozen
(Ashton Kutcher)
Crank
(Amy Smart)
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
An interesting little program illustrating how chaos
theory may be represented graphically, by the man
who is credited with coining the "butterfly effect"
theorems, mathematician Edward Lorenz.
You don't need to understand the mathematics behind
the "Lorenz Attractor" for it to blow your
mind. Just note that there is more mystery, beauty
and marvel to be found in mathematics than most pseudoscience
purveyors can conjure in ten lifetimes.
Run
the applet and see...
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