Movie Review: The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Genre: Fantasy Drama

Directors: Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber

Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz

Running Time: 113 minutes

Synopsis: At seven-years-old, Evan learns that his incarcerated father possesses special powers. Evan then starts suffering blackouts, including during an episode of child abuse instigated by the father (Eric Stoltz) of his friend Kayleigh and her brother Tommy. At 13, blackouts accompany a prank that goes tragically wrong and a violent incident involving a dog. As a 20-year-old college student, Evan (Ashton Kutcher) reunites with an unhappy Kayleigh (Amy Smart), and realizes that through his journals he may hold the power to alter destiny's trajectory.

What Works Well: Co-directors and co-writers Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber craft an intricate, elaborate, and brilliantly thoughtful drama about little actions making a big difference. As Evan experiments with destiny's alternatives, the certainty of finding no easy pathways and always stumbling on unintended consequences plays out with magnificent suddenness, life's violence and humour often rubbing shoulders. With confident execution, Bress and Gruber maintain a strong hold on the intellectually sprawling material, allowing Ashton Kutcher to find a career highlight in an unlikely role.

What Does Not Work As Well: As a minor quibble, Evan's mother Andrea (Melora Walters) has a strong initial influence, but fades in the second half.

Conclusion: The vagaries of fate revealed with wicked cleverness.



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Movie Review: 13 Minutes (2021)

Genre: Disaster Drama

Director: Lindsay Gossling

Starring: Anne Heche, Amy Smart, Thora Birch, Sofia Vassilieva, Paz Vega
Running Time: 108 minutes

Synopsis: A county in rural Oklahoma is bracing for a storm carrying the threat of destructive tornadoes. A farming couple (Anne Heche and Trace Adkins), a young mother and her unexpectedly pregnant teen daughter (Thora Birch and Sofia Vassilieva), a hotel housekeeper (Paz Vega) and her illegal immigrant lover, a gay couple, and an emergency management services coordinator (Amy Smart) and her young deaf daughter, all have their lives disrupted when the storm hits.

What Works Well: Arriving approximately two thirds of the way through the running time, the critical few minutes when everyone scrambles for shelter and the storm rumbles over the community are excellent. Despite the modest budget, the mammoth tornado is brought to the screen with menacing special effects, and the immediate stunning aftermath featuring a community reduced to rubble carries the requisite impact.

What Does Not Work As Well: Writer and director Lindsay Gossling overpacks her plot with a diversity of cultural hot topics, including abortion, illegal immigration, and parent/gay offspring conflicts, all dealt with at the most superficial level. It takes a long time for the storm to interrupt all the stereotypical antics, and the aftermath is a bland non-resolution, the final third mostly consisting of survivors clambering over debris piles. Some of the acting and writing borders on painfully amateurish.

Conclusion: The real damage is done before the tornado ever makes land.

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Movie Review: Just Friends (2005)

A romantic comedy, Just Friends lacks romance and delivers a distastefully mean brand of flippancy.

At a New Jersey high school, overweight Chris (Ryan Reynolds) is good friends with cheerleader Jamie (Amy Smart) but would like to be more. She is only interested in him as a friend, and as they get ready to graduate his crush is revealed and he is humiliated. He departs to build a new life in Los Angeles.

Ten years later Chris has slimmed down and has a successful career as a record company executive. He is shepherding combustible singer Samantha James (Anna Faris) towards her first big recording when an airplane mishap lands them both in New Jersey at Christmas time. Chris reunites with his brother Mike (Christopher Marquette) and mother Carol (Julie Hagerty), and attempts to make amends and win Jamie's heart. However, he makes all the wrong moves, and discovers a rival in former high school buddy Dusty Dinkleman (Chris Klein).

Almost entirely lacking in sympathetic characters, Just Friends is a misfire. Director Roger Kumble adopts an unappealing posture of hostile sarcasm, boys and men exhibiting juvenile attitudes in an obsessive pursuit of sex, women barely defined except as out-of-control cranks (Samantha) or objects to lust after (Jamie). Rampant homophobic and fat-shaming insults are layered upon sophomoric slapstick antics (Chris and his brother Mike engage in continuous physical combat) to confirm a movie twenty years behind the times.

With Jamie devoid of personality (Amy Smart is never provided the opportunity to create a real person) and Samantha caricatured as borderline psychotic (Anna Faris at least has a blast), Chris is the last hope to save the narrative. But as an adult he is an utter douche, intent on mistreating everyone and receiving ample and well-deserved humiliation in return. Ryan Reynolds overplays his eye-rolling, everything-is-stupid persona, dragging the adventure into obnoxious territory.

A few funny moments survive, including the comprehensive destruction of a Christmas lights display, but otherwise Just Friends is just feeble.



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