I once heard an amazing quote that puts everything in perspective concerning the FOX network. To paraphrase it, “FOX develops amazing shows, sometimes the best in the business; they just don’t know how to handle them.” Never before has a quote shown so much enlightenment upon a single situation. Luckily, for all of us, those amazing shows also pique the interest of other companies, and in the case of Firefly, an ill-fated 2003 sci-fi romp, Universal saw the potential of the show, and gave creator Joss Whedon the pickup for a feature film.

Firefly, the precursor to Serenity, was, as described above, a sci-fi series nested comfortable in the “Friday Death Slot” that hasn’t seen a show escape since The X Files made the leap to Sunday’s. The show, focusing on an ensemble cast aboard the transport ship Serenity (Firefly-class) opened up the world of the future to the mind of Buffy and Angel creator Joss Whedon, who is known for taking chances in both his writing and direction of shows. I’m happy to say that Whedon successfully makes his feature film debut in what is, quite possibly, the best science fiction film in a decade or longer.

For the uninitiated Serenity focuses on the same ensemble crew from the television series still flying about, breaking the law, pillaging Alliance goods, and generally having a good time. The crew is composed of captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), his first mate Zoe (Gina Torres), her husband and pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), engineer Kaylee (Jewel Staite), mercenary Jayne (Adam Baldwin) as well as fugitive passengers Simon (Sean Maher) and River (Summer Glau). The latter is the focus of the film’s story as her back story is analyzed a bit more than Whedon was able to in the TV show. For fans of the show the movie serves as both a proper series finale as well as a jumping point into a series of films.

One of Firefly‘s, and Buffy and Angel before it, greatest achievements was in the show’s writing. The film inherits this trait and builds upon it. Whedon seems incredibly comfortable crafting a bigger, more intricate episode of the show with an added budget for special effects and set design, both places Serenity excels beyond the competition. Similarly to Sci-Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica, Serenity is a piece of entertainment written around the characters, almost as though it was written for them instead of a viewing audience. Each one is fleshed out and entirely human in the way they act, behave, and react to the situations meeting them head on. This all comes into play fully as the film’s climax begins to really play with your emotional heartstrings as Whedon, once again, shows he is fearless when it comes to his characters and their mortality. While I won’t give anything away, prepare to be shocked.

You’d never be able to tell that Whedon has never directed a big screen production before, as his skills from the small screen transfer to the silver one with incredibly finesse. The movement of the camera is especially awesome as the opening scene of the film is a continuous shot for a matter of minutes without an obvious cut. Many first time directors, with or without previous TV or music video experience, can easily be overwhelmed when put at the helm of a feature film, not Whedon.

While the director should receive a lot of the praise for this wonderful film, the cast isn’t without accommodation as well. Each and every actor has shown the ability to create a memorable character that melds perfectly with the rest of the cast. Whether it is Mal and Jayne playfully arguing or Inara (Morena Baccarin) and Mal fighting their feelings for each other, the dialog is crisp, witty, and full of life. Whedon’s script is the film’s strongest point and can easily be considered for Oscar nomination if the tool’s within the Academy would acknowledge something besides the usual art-house cinema.

Whether or not the masses are ready for a new franchise built upon a sly wit, great characters, and an imaginative take on the future is beyond me, but for those enjoying excellent, award-caliber cinema, Serenity is a no-brainer. Easily better than George Lucas’ prequel trilogy, more alive than the excellent Battlestar Galactica, and more real than reality TV, Serenity is the kind of film that really makes you think about the sci-fi genre in a different light as it breaks the mold we’ve grown so accustom to over the years.

Warning: The following review contains spoilers.

I’ll just come right out and say it. With all the hype, hoopla, and press surrounding War of the Worlds, you would think it would be a better movie. Instead we are left with and E.T. meets Independence Day mash-up that is so poorly written even the “star power” of Tom Cruise can’t save it from being just another summer movie.

In fact, any marketing material that claims this film is an epic summer movie is clearly talking about Batman Begins. Even with the huge numbers put up opening day and this past holiday weekend, War of the Worlds is no where near the quality of film I was expecting. You’d think the team up between Cruise and Spielberg would generate the film to end all films, but by the time the credits starting to roll, I just wanted this movie to end.

You develop a love/hate relationship with Worlds, mainly because you want to like it so much, and the parts you turn your brain off and just watch the wanton destruction of the human race, you do like it. What inevitably happens is the destruction only makes up about 25% of the film leaving the other 75% to focus on the 2D characters so honed in on their cliché molds that nothing really stands out until the Rainbow Happy-time Care Bear Ending that makes you immediately want to lick the goo stuck to the theater floor in the hopes you might pass out.

War sees Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) inherit his two kids for the weekend while his ex-wife and her new beau race off to Boston to meet her parents. Like every single dad, Ray has no food in his house, his son hates him, his daughter is spoiled, and he rebuilds engines in his kitchen. Can you see the excitement building already?

When a freak storm causes lightening to strike one particular spot dozens of times, everything electronic shuts down as alien “Tripods” spring to life, having been hidden beneath the streets of New York, and every other major city across the globe. But these aliens aren’t the Reese’s Pieces eating, finger healing kind we’ve come to expect from Spielberg, no, these aliens want us dead, and they zap us with laser beams and harvest our bodily fluids as fertilizer.

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT

Then the movie ends, just like that. You don’t even see it coming. It’s so abrupt and so sudden that Tom and I looked at each other like, “That was it? That’s how they’re going to end this?” It isn’t that the way they ended it was bad, it was the execution that really felt as though there was a third grade contest to write it, and this is what won.

The fact that you feel absolutely nothing for the characters is only a side-point to the overall disappointment. Cruise portrays Ferrier adequately, knowing that he doesn’t have a lot to work with, but Dakota Fanning’s Rachael and Justin Chatwin’s Robbie are so underwritten and paint-by-the-numbers that the déjà vu of, “I’ve seen this character 100 times before,” really starts to set in five minutes after they’re introduced.

Also, the primary focus of the film is Ray trying to get his kids to their mother in Boston, but why? It makes no real sense that he would brave big, busy cities filled with canon fodder instead of hiding out in the countryside and waiting to see what happens. In a moment of brilliance Ray actually does this only to meet one of the most insane characters I’ve seen all year in Tim Robbins’ Ogilvy. The relationship between Ogilvy and Ferrier tries to display the social underpinnings of humans under stress. This part succeeds, although it limps along until the act’s defining moment.

Spielberg’s direction is adequate to collect a paycheck, but there isn’t the magic and cinematography we saw in E.T. or Saving Private Ryan. Instead we get another by-the-book performance mainly used by the distributors to market the film.

I’m really not trying to be overtly harsh on the film, and maybe I’m making a point that Hollywood really can’t expect us to continue to go to the movies when they continue to release half-assed product such as this. There was so much potential here that it all feels wasted for the short term goal of making money rather than art. When the studios finally figure out that we wouldn’t mind a good movie (like Batman Begins) in the summer rather than this standard schlock, we’ll either be watching TV, or, better, listening to Orson Well’s radio broadcast and letting our imagination do the work.

To everyone associated with this film: try harder next time.

Spoilers Contained Within…You Have Been Warned!

Let me just say that I’m not a big time Star Wars fan, or at least I’m not keyed into the huge mythology that has arisen since the original trilogy’s release in the late 70’s-early 80’s. I know who the characters are, who they’re suppose to be, who is who’s father; you know, the basics. So I’m going to be looking at Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith from a viewpoint of a casual Star Wars fan and a hobbyist movie critic. Get ready to send that hate mail.

Revenge of the Sith, for the unenlightened, is the culmination of the prequel trilogy started by George Lucas in 1999 with the massively disappointing, but highly profitable The Phantom Menace. The movie introduces us to a small Anakin Skywalker (Jack Lloyd) who drives in a treacherously long pod-race to win his freedom and attempt to become a Jedi Knight. We also are introduced to the fact that “The Force” is nothing more than some unique stuff inside your cells. The movie sets up the principles that would be further elaborated upon in Episode II Attack of the Clones such as Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) rising to power, Anakin (Hayden Christensen) and Padme (Natalie Portman) hooking up, and Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) taking on the leadership role with his new apprentice.

Episode III brings everything to a head. The Clone War is continuing, suspicions of the Chancellor continue, and the Jedi “have a bad feeling about this” entire situation, and its well-founded as they are nearly wiped out save for a lucky few thrown into exile. The film continues to build upon the rage inside Skywalker as he turns to the darkside and ends with the scene many have been waiting for, the creation of Darth Vader in the form we all know.

As a movie bridging the gap between the excellent Episode IV and the so-so Episode II, Revenge of the Sith does its job adequately. With the passing of twenty years, we can see how the Death Star would be created, Vader would become the powerful man he is in the latter episodes, and how his human side can still hold true in Return of the Jedi as he saves his son from the corrupt Emperor. For fan-boys Episode III is the fix they needed until the planned TV series begins production, but as a movie, RotS is an underwhelming affair.

The story itself, although sounding very interesting on paper, is actually pretty boring in execution. The first hour of the film is nothing more than political speeches and romantic melodrama sans the opening fight sequence and amazing visuals. When the audience settles down from the crash landing of a battlecruiser you wonder what happen to all the action. Lucas seems to cut so quickly between shots (sometimes no more than 20-30 seconds long) before he performs the trademark wipes that it’s really hard to grasp what is really going on sometimes. Even harder to understand is many of these events happen at the same time further throwing you off when you return to a scene minutes later at nearly the same exact time you cut away. These quick cuts even confuse Lucas’ script in more than a few points. Not until the culminating duel of Anakin and Obi-Wan does the movie really pick up, and that’s nearly the end.

The death of several key characters seems highly contrived. Mace Windu’s (Samuel L. Jackson) is wholly inconsistent with what we’ve seen the Jedi do in earlier movies. If Anakin can freefall through traffic and manage to save himself, even a handicapped Windu should be able to accomplish the same feat. Padme’s impending doom seems as though it was plotted over bagels on a Sunday morning with no real reason other than “she’s lost the will to live,” given. I’m sorry but that bit of shoddy storytelling just won’t fly with me, especially in such a high profile movie. Then there’s the time consistency between Padme telling Anakin she’s pregnant and actually having the babies which seems to only happen a few days apart from each other.

I’ve never considered George Lucas to be that “awesome” of a director so my expectations weren’t incredibly high for Revenge of the Sith in that aspect, so I can’t say I was disappointed. I had heard rumblings on how bad the dialog was, but I honestly didn’t hear too many bad lines. Christensen seems to have fit into the role a bit better this time and sanded away his wooden acting from Episode II. Overall the cast is put together well and gel nicely with each other but lacks the chemistry we saw between the original trilogy’s cast members.

The much publicized “creation” of Darth Vader in masked form is generally underwhelming as it’s a three minute affair of attaching prosthetic body parts and recreating the famous breathing sound along with James Earl Jones bombastic voice.

In continuing with underutilized and underdeveloped villains the hyped General Grievous is fun to watch but comical to hear when he actually decides to talk. Once he’s dispatched, along with the paycheck-collecting Christopher Lee as Count Dooku, you’ll wonder what place they ever served in the movie other than filler.

The film isn’t all bad though. From a visual stand point ILM has created the best looking movie I have ever seen. The opening space battle was just amazing with huge capital ships battling for the skies of the capital planet. Realistically you won’t find a better looking science fiction movie, digital or not. Yet, we’ve seen plenty of movies rest on the laurels of their imagery, and while Revenge of the Sith never does that, I got the felling that all the eye candy may be trying to distract you from the script.

After it was all said and done I left the theater feeling like nothing had just happened. It was almost like I sat for two and a half hours and didn’t really retain anything. It might be a combination of my lack of die-hard fanaticism and the creating of an average movie or from the fact that, being a prequel, there’s no mystery. What I do know is I had a much, much better time with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy a few weeks ago than I did with Revenge of the Sith, but to each his own. Star Wars is a very high profile franchise and with the high expectations that were placed on Episode III, frankly I’m not surprised it failed to live up to the lineage set down by the original trilogy. If it means anything, each movie in the prequel trilogy has been better than the last, so here’s hoping the TV series can continue that trend and deliver us something a bit better produced, and more well-written.

Warning this review may contain material some readers might find objectionable.

With the recent surge in both comic book movies and films that pair up two franchises against each other (a la Freddy vs. Jason) it seems only right that someone would finally realize that there was one untapped “vs.” match-up that is also a comic book/video game franchise. With all that going for it, it would be impossible to screw up, right?

Unfortunately, for the viewer, watching Alien vs. Predator is like being bent over a chair by director Paul W.S. Anderson and being violated with nothing more than the Alien-creature’s searing, acid blood as lubrication. The film is such a mess one must wonder if FOX knew what was going on during the movie’s production and if they actually knew that two of their greatest franchises, with so much established canon, and potential, would be going down the virtual crapper faster than you can say “dollar signs.”

The fact that the movie wasn’t screened for critics during the week of its release was the first indication that something was wrong. Usually, for those who are unfamiliar with the premise, a film is screened for “professional” critics a few days in advance of its release in order to build up buzz for the film. When a movie isn’t screened the studio usually knows something is wrong and declines to hold a screening hoping to stem the negative buzz before it hits the streets.

Alien vs. Predator, as a film catering to fans of both franchises, doesn’t need critical approval for the movie to be accepted and viewed. Maybe that is the most troubling actuality for me. The fact that people will be endlessly viewing the film hoping that they are finally going to get the ultimate showdown between two of the coolest characters in sci-fi history. Half-way through the film it won’t be uncommon to check to make sure the director isn’t behind you, waiting for you to get up. Even if Paul W.S. Anderson isn’t back there, perhaps the FOX studio execs are, waiting for their opportunity to shovel this crap down the throats of unsuspecting movie-goers.

Those looking to see a film that capitalizes on the strengths of both franchises are due to be very disappointed. Coming in with the cop-out, and crippling, PG-13 rating, AVP lacks the violence of its predecessors and aside from a few in-jokes here and there, you never get the feeling that this film is anything more than a marketing measure gone horribly wrong than an actual film in either series. Granted, the premise of the film isn’t too bad, although a great majority of the comic’s fans, including myself, was hoping for the film to be set in the future allowing for the two alien creations to go up-against the lovable space marines from James Cameron’s excellent Aliens. The prequel aspect took out the enduring quality of the Alien series, Ripley, a hero identified as one of the top 50 ever, and left us with a tough rock-climbing chick (Sanaa Lathan).

Instead of Ripley to tie the movies together, we get the equally cool Bishop in the form of the founder of the once-nameless Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen). Weyland who finds a temple constructed under Antarctica. Striving forward, in the capitalist definition of the word, the corporate headpiece brings together a rag-tag group of drillers, explorers, and archaeological experts to travel to the temple, and see what lies within.

It just so happens that a clan of Predators use that temple to train their youngsters and allow them to become full-fledge hunters in a coming-of-age hunt that rewards them with their shoulder-blasters. Imagine how surprised the humans are when they stumble upon the sacrificial chamber used to impregnate host with alien embryos. This is where things take a turn for the worse. As we saw in Alien, the gestation period for the embryo is hours, if not a better part of a day, but in AVP, it takes all but five minutes for the alien to “bust-out” onto the scene and begin to cause havoc. This is just one of the glaring inconsistencies with the series including established canon that goes back to the very first film in the series. The movie seems to rely on the Alien back-story more than the Predator one. Why do I say this? The fact that no one seems to remember anything that happen in the previous two Predator films (acres of jungle being blown to kingdom-come and a giant explosion under a major US city), even though they would have happened in the past if this film takes place in 2004. Even the Predator series’ most revered joke (“You’re one ugly mother…”) is misplaced in this film, when they utter it towards the wrong species!

There were times during the movie when I wished for a blunt instrument to jam into my eye and see if I was more entertained. The stylistic camera motions used by Anderson exhibit his need for a Steadicam more than a sense of style. The head to head battles, between the two title characters, are very hard to follow when the camera seems to jump all over the place, making it hard to understand what is going on. Towards the end, things become even more ludicrous as a sort-of-Charlie’s–Angels-like motif sets in including the prerequisite slow-motion run in front a wall of fire and Jurassic Park-rip-off ending sequence. Even the “ha-we-got-you” ending is rendered futile if you examine the previous films in the series and realize that it could never happen.

Alien vs. Predator is yet another failed sequel and a huge disappointment for the people who support those sequels, the core fans of the series. Instead of a fight to the death or even FOX’s marketing ploy of “whoever wins…we lose” we get a tame version of a film that had so much success in other mediums it should have been a no-brainer to bring it to big screen in style. In the long run, maybe it is better this movie has been made so in 30 years, when Hollywood completely runs out of ideas again, they can remake it and know what not to do. Here’s hoping things look better in 2034 and the grocery store isn’t out of ointment.

Will Smith seems to have the Owen Wilson syndrome when it comes to acting. No matter what part he plays, he’s always playing himself in the role. However, much like Owen Wilson, his character seems to work in most applications (except for Wild Wild West). However, it did work well in I, Robot, even though it was Will Smith playing Will Smith in another movie. Smith still managed to play a believable and somewhat humorous performance in one of the darker sci-fi movies in recent memory.

In I, Robot, Will Smith plays the role of detective Del Spooner, part of the Chicago police department in the not so distant 2035. Spooner has a serious problem with the growing robot population, and the introduction of the new series NS-5 robot has him completely techno-phobic. He is called to a crime scene by a holographic projection of the pioneer of robotics, Dr. Alfred Lanning. Dr. Lanning, who was a top scientist at US Robotics, seems to have committed suicide, and Detective Spooner finds an NS-5 robot as the prime suspect. However, he is alone in his quest as everyone else in the free world believes that robots are incapable of committing a crime as it violates the basic 3 law system that all robots are built to abide by. The robot suspect, Sonny, seems different, somehow, and not like the others. It is up to Spooner to get to the bottom of the situation without being labeled crazy.

The aspect of this movie that really shines is the effect department. The transition from real scenery to CG is nearly seamless, and the completely CG robots seem to interact with the actors with lifelike quality. The robots in this movie were purposely made with small abdomens and thinner limbs, to make them more realistic, but required that stand in actors not be used. Instead, they were able to green screen a pole with a tennis ball for a head, so the actors knew where to look and interact, and required less editing to fit. The parts where facial expressions of the robot Sonny were used, a true actor was employed, wearing a green leotard (voice and face acting done by Alan Tudyk). He was then edited out, except for the face, where motion capture was used to emulate the prosthetic face of Sonny. The technique seems more costly both in time and money, but provided quite a realistic and amazing robot onscreen.

The only thing that made me want to stay home from this movie was the pre-release buzz that this film was not originally based on the book of the same name, but was actually a completely different script called Hardwired. When Fox picked up the rights to Asimov’s stories, Hardwired was rewritten as I, Robot, and, apparently, only has a very loose affiliation to the actual book, but I can’t be the judge of that until I actually read the book.

A few substandard acting jobs and reused camera tricks were the movie’s only faults. A scene featuring a showdown between the people of Chicago and robots seemed to have the exact same camera pan set as a similar scene in Lord of the Rings, which took away from the uniqueness of the scene. At least it wasn’t a stolen technique, as WETA Digital, who did the effects for LoTR, had their hand in this movie as well. I’m somewhat surprised that Lucas and ILM had nothing to do with this movie.

Bridget Monynahan played a somewhat campy role as Susan Calvin, robotics expert and psychiatrist. Not quite a normal choice of majors in college, but who knows what those crazy kids will be learning in 2035. Her acting just didn’t click with me. She tried really hard to cry when she was supposed to be crying, and it showed. But she seemed to nail the bitchy attitude when that was necessary, maybe that’s what they were going for, bitchy-brainiac-who-tried-too-hard-to-cry. At least she had a PG-13 shower scene, but, so did Will Smith, if you are into that sort of thing.

All in all, the film wasn’t too bad. Definitely one of the top 5 films of the summer, but that’s not saying as much as I wish it was. As Tom put it, “I came to this movie expecting crap, but I got better than crap.” So we’ll leave it at, “better than crap.”

In our Summer of Cinema 2004 feature earlier this summer I wrote this about The Chronicles of Riddick, “I hope that Universal doesn’t see this as something to exploit and become controlling over in the wake of the success of Lord of the Rings.” While I wasn’t right in my pre-judgment of the film, I wasn’t exactly wrong either. It seems as though all of the parts that made Pitch Black such an excellent sci-fi horror film have been broadened and broken down in creating a new vehicle to launch a new franchise.

The Chronicles of Riddick picks up six years after the final events in Pitch Black. Escaped convict Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) is once again being hunted by mercenaries for the bounty placed on his head. Riddick manages to escape capture and located the creditor who is offering the reward for his capture. This old friend brings him to New Mecca where Aereon (Dame Judi Dench), an elemental, pleads for Riddick to help her disrupt the reign of the Necromongers, a group of traveling warriors seeking out the Underverse, their promise land. The Necros jump from planet to planet, assimilating the inhabitants and destroying their very existence.

If the film sounds like it doesn’t have much to do with Pitch Black, you are reading correctly. The basic story elements of Riddick are left intact, and the characters that survived the first film are in this one, but newbies to the series, those who haven’t seen the first film, will find Riddick as easily accessible as those who loved the first film. This is where the movie’s major problem lies, Universal built the movie around Riddick this time, and the premise of the character is strong enough to support a trilogy of movies, but the writing in this film is so absurd in some parts that you almost wonder if this was from the same director.

I must give David Twohy credit though; he managed to do what Stephen Somers only dreamed of with Van Helsing, he created a film with amazing architecture, back-story, and sequel elements that will have science fiction fans clamoring for more for the next ten years. Somers could only accommodate 10 minutes of story laced in with his elaborate special effects and “liberties” that turned one of the coolest villains in cinema history into a Kindercare teacher. Twohy established Riddick in the first film, so the trick this time was figuring out a way to craft a story around him so that it would be believable for the character to return and not leave the audience laughing at the absurdity of it. Mind you, this is no laugh-fest like LXG, but you will still be chuckling to yourself at times when the story is suppose to be suspenseful and interesting.

As the story breaks down Riddick realizes that he is one of the only remaining Furions, a race of born warriors who wouldn’t bow to the Necromonger leader Lord Marshal (Colm Feore). After his escape from the Necro Flagship he is transported to a penal colony deep inside a boiling planet where the sun will burn you alive on contact, this proves to hold a bulk of the movie’s main story elements, including Riddick’s reunion with Kyra (Alexa Davalos) who previously went by Jack in Pitch Black. Still, Riddick’s biggest hook is his ability to see in the dark. This ability is drastically underused in the film because it simply isn’t needed. Not being stranded on a planet held in perpetual darkness doesn’t aid itself well to the story. But the screenwriters can’t make up their mind whether Riddick should wear the goggles or not. In Pitch Black we saw him flinch when light was shined in his eye, but in this film he walks through half of the movie without them, and the other half either taking them off or putting them back on.

Those with a keen eye will notice the Shakespearian undertones to one of the movie’s B-storylines which involves Vaako (Karl Urban) and Dame Vaako (Thandie Newton). The constant persistence of the female half of this union prodding her husband to murder his lord and take his rightfully place atop the throne of the Necromongers. For those wondering, read Macbeth.

I still have mixed feelings as to whether I really liked the film or if I was disappointed, and maybe when it comes time to revisit the Summer of Cinema Feature in September I will have different feelings, or maybe a few viewings on DVD will put my mind at ease. As it stands now, The Chronicles of Riddick brings back one of the coolest anti-heroes ever brought to the big screen, but whether the film is a success in the minds of moviegoers and fans remains to be seen.

The Butterfly Effect is much like Final Destination and Fight Club in the way that you will always find someone who likes the movie for what it is, maybe because it is a genre film, or maybe because the movie actually makes you think. For what ever the reason, those films stay in your mind as a fond memory of cinema where you could enjoy yourself for 120 minutes and not have to worry about the outside world. They also asked you to leave the theater with a thought in your head, the thought of what could really happen if such a situation presented itself. As with The Butterfly Effect, what if you could go back and change the way things happened? What if everything, and everyone, would have a better life if only one such thing changed?

The Butterfly Effect gets its name for Chaos Theory which states that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world could cause a hurricane on the other. It’s those sorts of things that really make you think. Just like Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) in Jurassic Park, as he describes the theory, what expect to happen, actually never does.

This film centers on Evan (Ashton Kutcher) a college student with a seemingly normal life after a childhood filled with hardship. Through the first part of the film we are introduced to Evan and his friends Kayleigh (Amy Smart), Tommy (William Lee Scott), and Lenny (Elden Henson). Tommy is an abused, possibly molested, sibling to Kayleigh and very protective of his sister. As a child Evan experiences blackouts that inhibit him from remember the actions that led up to an event, and his actions after the fact. When his memories start to unfold in college he seeks his friends out to help him fill in the gaps. After talking with Kayleigh, and upsetting her, she kills herself and Evan vows to save her. Using his journals as guides he focuses in on the blackouts of a certain event and is transposed back in time to alter the event, but like Homer Simpson stepping on a bug in the past, these time travel exploits have vast repercussions on the future.

The film has more than one thing going for it. First off the story is not grade-A-quality, but it really makes you think at times, and intrigues you with the surprising results that Evan’s little changes make. At times you think his life has gotten better, in one instance he is a member of the frat he despises in the “real” world, but that life puts him in prison after brutally beating Tommy. The conflicts between the characters are portrayed excellently, with a special shout out to young rising star, Amy Smart.

The biggest story in the post-release press for The Butterfly Effect was the quality of Ashton Kutcher’s acting, and I, personally, don’t think he did a bad job in the film. Its hard to see him in any other role that a stoner (Dude, Where’s My Car?) or the dim-witted Kelso (That 70’s Show), but if you set aside any predetermining factors about the man, and his tabloid inspired news, you can actually see a young actor that, with some training, can become a worthy drama actor. His portrayal as the older Evan in this film isn’t worthy of any awards, but it shouldn’t dog him later in his career. It’s nice to see him branching out.

The special effects in the film are done fairly well. Most notable is the “time-warping” sequence that the audience sees whenever Evan travels in time. On part, towards the end of the film, may not look as good as a similar sequence in Forest Gump, but it does earn a passable rating.

The Butterfly Effect is sure to become a cult favorite, if not a mild box office hit. The film has all the makings of something great, but comes up a bit short in the story and directing departments. Luckily the story doesn’t leave any room open for a sequel, as that would defeat the purpose of such a film as this. Now if we could only go back in time and stop the Wachowski Brothers from ruining The Matrix franchise, everything would be hunky-dory.