Its been said that when a butterfly flaps its wings, somewhere in the world a typhoon is started. This sounds like absolute gibberish to me, however The Butterfly Effect takes the core principle here (“change one thing, change everything”) and uses it to great effect.

Ashton Kutcher (who acts out of his skin and turns in a great performance) plays Evan Treborn, a guy who suffers from blackouts as a child. When he gets to his 20’s, he finds out that he can travel back and change the events in his past, thus changing his present.

Co-starring Amy Smart and a pretty good line-up of “that guy” actors (including the token fat guy from Varsity Blues) and also Eric Stoltz (where did he go for the last 5 years? Shouldn’t we be running an investigation into this?), The Butterfly Effect is one of the surprise films I’ve seen lately – I was impressed by how well the ‘chaos theory’ and ‘time travel’ elements of the story are dealt with, and also how well things fit together.

And as if that wasn’t enough, there are enough random things happening in this film that I was able to watch the whole thing without getting bored. I could say more, but I would give away the story (however, I will say that the ending left me feeling a little numb, and a little sick).

I give this an 8 out of 10 – after all, it is still Ashton Kutcher, and I kind of got the feeling that it would have been a better film had real actors been involved. Don’t be dismayed by this though – The Butterfly Effect is definitely one to check out.