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Beer for My Horses Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Butterfly Effect, The
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MPAA RATING: R for violence, sexual content, language and brief drug use
Starring Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Kevin Schmidt, Melora Walters, Elden Henson, Eric Stoltz, John Patrick Amedori, and William Lee Scott
Evan Treborn (Kutcher) has lost track of time. From an early age, crucial moments of his life have disappeared into a black hole of forgetting, his boyhood marred by a series of terrifying events he can't remember. Determined to do something now that he was incapable of doing then, Evan purposely travels back in time, his present-day mind occupying his childhood body, in an attempt to re-write history and spare his friends and loved ones these traumatic experiences. By altering the events of the past, Evan hopes to transform the present. (New Line Cinema)
| GENRE(S): | Drama | Sci-fi | Suspense/Thriller |
| WRITTEN BY: |
J. Mackye Gruber
Eric Bress |
| DIRECTED BY: |
Eric Bress
J. Mackye Gruber |
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: July 6, 2004 Video: July 6, 2004 Theatrical: January 23, 2004 |
| RUNNING TIME: | 113 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: | USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 173 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Paul W. gave it a0:
Horrible movie, I never got past the first 40 minutes due to how horrible it was.
Ghostbuddy gave it an8:
The majority of modern day critics, are unfortunetely traped in a closed minded state while watching movies. Just look at the reviews for this movie, found on this site. And the biggest complaint you see is the plot is silly. That the plot is nonsense. The truth is, the plot isn't grounded in what they accept as reality. And that prevents them from seeing the commentary behind it. The basic concept is. We have a group of friends that grow up, with a pretty f-ked up childhood. Evan, the main character begins to suffer from blackouts. He is taken to a child psychologist, who assures Evans mother its nothing to worry about. And that children usually do this to forget about stressful and traumatic experiences. He reccomends that Evan begin to reccord a journal to help him remember. When Evan grows up, and is in college. He realizes he can take control of his past self by reading his journal. Basically his consciousness can take a trip back in time. Allowing him to change his past. This turns out to be a silly and unrealistic but suprizingly effective plot device. It allows the story telling to reveals things about the characters twisted past, in very interesting ways. It allows the movie to talk about consequences and humanity in very intriguing ways. The movie is overall well executed. Effective camera angles. Great use of sound and image filters during the film. There is some less then satisfactory acting. But I never found it to be laughably or unacceptably bad. I think the degree of which this movie was panned highlights a problem with critics. One reviewer basically critized the film for not having a typical hollywood ending. Another reviewer critized it for being "complicated". This movie has a lot of good ideas, and if you approach it open mindedly, you will find an intriguing commentary wraped in twisted imagery, backed by great film making and editing. Don't get me wrong, this movie is not perfect, nor close to it. But I think it would be a shame if the genius in this movie is forgotten. Because the movies plot refuses to be grounded by preconcieved notions, and because of a few minor fumbles by a few actors. Seriously, don't take critics of any kind seriously on anything any more. Trust the adverage user score more.
Jimmy H. gave it a3:
This film contains so much unnecessarily creepy imagery and abhorrent characters that one is forced to treat it as camp, lest the viewer become abysmally unhappy with the state of the world. That said, the unintentional-comedy potential (even more so with the director's cut "true" ending) is fantastic. A true must-see for film viewers with at least a half a sense of irony.
V Tuck gave it a2:
I feel I have to do my part to throw a warning in there. If you love movies with contrived twists and don't mind spotty plots, you may be thrilled by it. I, however, as much as I tried to like this movie, felt sickly averse to it pretty much the whole time. I thought Kutcher would be worse, but he seemed alright in the light of the scattered storyline and dirt-cheap sensationalism. I like some bad movies, but I hated this one.
musterion gave it an8:
After reading the critics, I was wondering if they watched the same move I did. Better than average file dealing with time threads. I guess it required them to think a bit too much. They all seemed to have raved about Donnie Darko.
Lawri gave it an8:
If you ignore the fact that Ashton Kutcher is bending the space-time thingy just by reading his old diaries (talk about macho, I think Chuck Norris himself would be impressed), it's a pretty entertaining The Story Of My Life movie.
Chris H. gave it a9:
A very well made movie, regardless of what critics think, this is worth a watch.
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