The Butterfly Effect

The director's cut features a different ending.

With his brain terribly damaged and aware that he is committed to a psychiatric facility where he will lose access to his time travel ability, Evan makes a desperate attempt to change the timeline by watching a family video, which shows his mother just before she was about to give birth to Evan. Evan travels back to that moment and strangles himself in the womb with his umbilical cord so as to prevent the multi-generational curse from continuing, consistent with an added scene where a psychic palm reader tells Evan "you have no lifeline" and that he does "not belong to this world".

Kayleigh is then seen as a child in the new timeline having chosen to live with her mother instead of her father, and a montage suggests that the lives of the other childhood characters have become loving and less tragic.

Critical reception for The Butterfly Effect was generally poor.[4][5][6] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 33% approval rating based on 172 reviews; the rating average is 4.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "The premise is intriguing, but it's placed in the service of an overwrought and tasteless thriller."[4] On Metacritic, another review aggregator, it has a score of 30 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[7]

Roger Ebert wrote that he "enjoyed The Butterfly Effect, up to a point" and that the "plot provides a showcase for acting talent, since the actors have to play characters who go through wild swings." However, Ebert said that the scientific notion of the butterfly effect is used inconsistently: Evan's changes should have wider reverberations.[8] Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called it a "metaphysical mess", criticizing the film's mechanics for being "fuzzy at best and just plain sloppy the rest of the time".[9] Mike Clark of USA Today also gave the film a negative review, stating, "Normally, such a premise comes off as either intriguing or silly, but the morbid subplots (there's prison sex, too) prevent Effect from becoming the unintentional howler it might otherwise be."[10] Additionally, Ty Burr of The Boston Globe went as far as saying, "whatever train-wreck pleasures you might locate here are spoiled by the vile acts the characters commit."[11]

Matt Soergel of The Florida Times-Union rated it 3 stars out of 4, writing, "The Butterfly Effect is preposterous, feverish, creepy and stars Ashton Kutcher in a dramatic role. It's a blast... a solidly entertaining B-movie. It's even quite funny at times..."[12] The Miami Herald said, "The Butterfly Effect is better than you might expect despite its awkward, slow beginning, drawing you in gradually and paying off in surprisingly effective and bittersweet ways," and added that Kutcher is "appealing and believable... The Butterfly Effect sticks to its rules fairly well... overall the film is consistent in its flights of fancy."[13] The Worcester Telegram & Gazette praised it as "a disturbing film" and "the first really interesting film of 2004," adding that Kutcher "carries it off":

Written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, who co-wrote Final Destination 2, this is much more intelligent than their earlier film would suggest... The Butterfly Effect may be a little too unconventional to succeed with a mass audience, but filmgoers claiming they want 'something different' from Hollywood ought to take note.[14]

In a retrospective, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote that critics, including himself, were too harsh on the film at the time of its release. Describing the film as having been patronized, Bradshaw cited critical disdain for Kutcher as making the film uncool to like.[6]

The film was a commercial success, earning $17,065,227 and claiming the #1 spot in its opening weekend.[15] Against a $13 million budget, The Butterfly Effect grossed around $57,938,693 at the U.S. box office and $96,060,858 worldwide.[16]

2004 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award

• Best Science Fiction Film - nominated[17]

2004 Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film

• Pegasus Audience Award — Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber - won[18]

2004 Teen Choice Awards

• Choice Movie: Thriller - nominated[19]

The film was released on both VHS, as well as DVD as the Infinifilm edition on July 6, 2004. This edition was released with the theatrical cut (113 minutes) on one side and the director's cut (120 minutes) on the other. The DVD also includes two documentaries ("The Science and Psychology of the Chaos Theory" and "The History and Allure of Time Travel"), a trivia subtitle track, filmmaker commentary by directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, deleted and alternative scenes, and a short feature called "The Creative Process" among other things.[20]

The Butterfly Effect has four different endings that were shot for the film:

1. The theatrical release ending shows Evan passing Kayleigh on the sidewalk, he sees her, and recognizes her, but keeps walking. She also has a brief moment of recognition but also keeps walking.
2. The "happy ending" alternative ending shows Evan and Kayleigh stopping on the sidewalk when they cross paths. They introduce themselves and Evan asks her out for coffee.[21]
3. The "open-ended" alternative ending is similar to the one where Evan and Kayleigh pass each other on the sidewalk and keep walking, except this time Evan, after hesitating, turns and follows Kayleigh.[22] This ending was utilized in the film's novelization, written by James Swallow and published by Black Flame.
4. The Director's cut ending shows Evan watching the recording of his mother giving birth to him. He proceeds to go back in time to the day when he has born and then strangles himself inside his mother's uterus.