The synopsis of this movie is not doing it any justice alone. I say that because I thought it was a great idea that the director added the following text at the beginning of the movie:
“It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world”
Chaos Theory (whereby small events may lead unpredictably to large events) is a very interesting idea, and this quote puts the viewer in the right mindset for what’s to come. I do want to add that this movie is very easy to follow. You don’t really need to think about anything while watching it; put your brain on autopilot and enjoy!
I’m a fan of movies whose first scene is actually a scene you are going to see near the end of the movie… IF it is done well. The very first scene that you see in this movie is to be repeated near the end; that should be obvious (and not a spoiler). I said I like it ‘if’ the movie does it well because there is huge potential for that part to make or break the entire movie: it can give away too much or it could immediately grab your attention. In my case, thankfully, it was the latter. When the scene did come up again, I didn’t mind seeing it for the second time because this time I saw it with previous context and it made sense. Kudos to the director for pulling this off.
I mentioned earlier that you don’t need your brain. The plot isn’t complicated, but at times it may seem random because of the change-one-thing-change-everything notion. When stuff like this does come up, I think it draws you in more rather than bore you. Even if you want to turn your brain on, and try to think of things that might work in Evan’s favour, you really don’t know how it would turn out, so it would be better to keep your brain in off state. Without trying to give away too much information, I’ll say that this movie takes some turns you don’t expect, so it keeps you on your toes. You never know what to expect.
For it to end the way it did wasn’t a let down, it was understandable (side note: I watched the Director’s Cut). It had to end the way it did, but if there was ever a movie, in which you truly wanted a happy ending, this would be it.
This movie not only kept my eyes glued to the screen, but now, I want to read Ray Bradbury’s book, A Sound of Thunder about a group of people who travel millions of years into the past to hunt dinosaurs. One of them accidentally steps on and kills a butterfly, which dramatically alters the future. I also want to watch The Simpsons episode, The Treehouse of Horror V, in which Homer travels back in time and sits on a fish and alters the future ("Oh I wish, I wish I hadn't killed that fish").
Interesting bit of trivia I read on IMDB:
In early versions of the script, the character of Evan was originally Chris Treborn. When the "T" is moved over, it becomes "Christ Reborn". This was changed to Evan Treborn, which is a play on "Event Reborn".
***SPOILER ALERT***
I hated the ending. Not because of how it ended, but just because it was sad. Evan tried everything he possibly good in order to get a good outcome for everyone he loved, which meant that he had to do what he did at the end. And it just sucks because I was rooting for him, but when you counter in Chaos Theory, things happened the way they were supposed to.
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