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The Main Characters
--Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) is currently in college studying psychology. He is very interested in psychology because when he was younger he was plagued with blackouts, instances where blocks of time were just seemingly gone from his memory. He couldn't remember them at all.
--Kayleigh Miller (Amy Smart) is Evan’s love interest. They’ve known each other since they were kids and she’s the reason Evan keeps going back in time to prevent certain events from happening. She has a very abusive and violent brother named Tommy.
--Thumper (Ethan Suplee) has almost no role in the movie but he was mentioned in the commercials so he must be mentioned here.
The Setting
I think it takes place somewhere in upstate NY, but I'll be clever and say, it takes place in many different dimensions and times.
The Plot
As a child, Evan suffered from many blackouts. A psychologist at the time told Evan's mother that Evan should write everything down so he can remember what happened. Young Evan kept many journals but it still didn't help with his blackouts. Evan managed to blackout during some of the most frightening moments of his life, like Amy's father sexually abusing them, Tommy going crazy and killing his dog, his crazy father trying to kill him etc. He can't remember why the blackouts happened and only knows what happened before and after the blackouts. We fast-forward 7 years and Evan is blackout free. He stumbles upon some of his old journals when a lady is over and she asks him to read some for her. Sounds good right? Well, when Evan starts reading it, life seems different. He is suddenly transported back to that instance written about in the notebook. Eventually, he learns he can change the events that happened in the blackout. He goes back in time to try to change the way things work out in order to save his love, Kayleigh. Of course, he finds that each time he goes back to "save" her, the outcome he never could have predicted and it seemingly keeps getting worse. See, the chaos theory state that someplace in the world a butterfly flaps its wings causing a tidal wave somewhere else. That's what this is. A simple change of one action, event or anything and it causes a tidal wave of results Evan couldn't have foreseen.
My Review
This movie caught me totally by surprise. I heard just a little about it before going to see it and it is one of my favorites of this year. I’ve heard a lot of criticism about this movie and it seems you either love it or hate it. The people who love it seem to get around all the plot and continuity problems that plague and movie that deals with time travel. Of course, any movie dealing with time travel will have continuity problems so I try to avoid that when watching a movie (I’ve watched enough Star Trek to be able to bypass it) and when you can get around those problems, you’ll find a really nice movie with an awesome story. The acting of Ashton Kutcher must be mentioned too. The guy known as Kelso in “That 70’s Show,” gives one helluva performance and really makes me want to see him in other non-comedic roles. Overall, a high recommendation.
Overall Rating
***1/4
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