The Butterfly Effect

The past of psychology grad Evan Treborn's (Kutcher) is full of holes. Little wonder he's blanked out such horrors as the time his genetically insane dad tried to strangle him, a video shoot with a paedophile neighbour, a flame-grilled puppy and an exploded baby. Attempting to patch up his mind, Evan peruses his childhood diaries and discovers he can time travel between the lines and rewrite past wrongs. But as any Trekkie knows, meddling with the space-time continuum risks most undesirable side effects. Kutcher's unable to flap any real sense out of this flawed yet strangely intriguing teen black comedy psych-fi drama. As the stop-go plot (from Gruber and Bress, the writers of Final Destination 2) buzzes round the dust heap of his memories like a tedious fly, Evan gets swatted through scenarios so increasingly grim you'll either snort with disbelieving laughter or wing it out before the limp little happy ending.