10 Movies That Wasted Brilliant Concepts
5. The Butterfly Effect (2004)
On paper, The Butterfly Effect has it all: A genuinely decent Ashton Kutcher performance, a striking coming-of-age theme, and time travel that comes with a massive twist and increasingly troubling implications. The results, however, leave little to be desired.
In the film, Kutcher stars as Evan, a man who discovers he has the ability to travel backward in time using his memories and decides to use his abilities to save himself and his friends from their awful, life-ruining childhoods. Every time he goes back in time, though, he predictably makes everything worse.
Leaning far too heavily into its dark themes - which includes a child abuse subplot and distressing animal cruelty - The Butterfly Effect ends up being far too concerned with disturbing viewers rather than offering them anything resembling a compelling drama. There's a great film in there somewhere, but it's buried.