Disclaimer: This review is from my perspective as a viewer with little or no knowledge of films and how they are made. What is written is entirely how I feel about the movie from my personal view as a movie fan and not a film critique. Also, note my limited English vocabulary in describing things and the absence of film-making terms and jargons. My take on the movie and its understanding are also probably based on the life that I went through as a person, as I think films touches these elements most of the time in terms of story. I hereby apologize for any error in touching those matters. Also, I have a very short-term memory so the review might miss talking about some parts

Synopsis

Evan is a kid who's having episodes of random memory loss. He was then advised to write down on a journal about what he is doing to be referred to later in case of another memory lost episode. He will lose consciousness randomly and regains it most of the time in a different place with different people in a situation how he can't remember what happened.

As he grew up older, he refers to the journal by reading an entry of something happening in the past, he will be brought back to the past. He then changed something and realized it affects his reality when he gets back to the present time.

Most of his meandering of the past resulted in his friends and family being in a bad situation and it is his quest to constantly go back to the past and find a combination of a fix which will result in everyone he loves turned out OK.

Comment

It was showing on TV last night and after 14 years of being released in the theatre, it was my first time watching it. I was pleasantly surprised by the premised that was being brought forward by the movie - that an unexplained brain activity can mean something - and the movie suggested that it might be linked with an event linked with the future.

In this case, Evan coming back from the future to the moments when he was unconscious and take control in order to change the uptake of the future when he got back there.

He realized that anything he changes has major effects on his friends, parents and himself. Hence the title of the movie which closely related to the theory of the Butterfly Effect. The theory suggest that a minute change in something can snowballed into something huge. 'Butterfly' is used because a flip of its wings will affect in the change of particle movements in the air and accumulatively can result in the change of the weather.

Also closely related to the Chaos Theory

The result of Evan changing the past has likely created a parallel universe where possiblity branches off in time. Each and everytime he is not happy with the outcome of the change, he will travel back to the past and change it until the very ending of the movie (no spoiler here).

I can atest that I am pleasantly suprised by the performance of Ashton Kucher in this movie in a form that Ive never seen him in before. His potrayal as someone in pain really gives the character depth and connects to me emotionally.

I must admit I almost had a minor migraine episode at the end of the movie. The camera and effects work really haunted me and leaves a mark in my mind as I go to sleep straight after the show.

As a Christopher Nolan fan for his movie such as Inception and especially Interstellar, I have been thinking of the probability of the future affecting the past in the scene where Murph and Cooper linked in the Tesseract.

Cooper's instance linked to the happenings of the past where Murph saw the codes thru the dusts particles and the movement of the watch.

I've then been having this notion that the future and the past is linked or exists in one instance. What we are doing now, is a result of what we do in the future. It is linked, like a chain.

Why I am writing this review now is the reason why I changed the channel last night and stayed to the finish of the movie.
Also found out that this movie is a trilogy with The Butterfly Effect 2 and 3 but I personally feel that this movie is complete on its own and not planning to watch the rest of the trilogy. Like how The Matrix can exist on its own without the other two.

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TEAMMALAYSIA FOR LIFE!