Spoiler Review of The Butterfly Effect

The film starts with a medical patient, played by Ashton Kutcher, breaking into a doctor's office at night. The noise has alerted some guards, he can hear them looking for him. He blocks the door with a sofa, he grabs a pencil and paper and starts writing "If someone reads this, it means that I was unsuccessful and am already dead..." The guards are outside the office by this point, their flashlights shining in as the scene fades out.

The film then goes back to "thirteen years earlier". We meet the young 8 year old Evan Treborn (the adult is played by Ashton Kutcher) who is being raised by his mother, who is a nurse. When he is dropped off at school, Evan's teacher insists on speaking with his mother about an urgent matter. Apparently, as part of a drawing assignment, Evan drew a very disturbing picture of himself holding a knife over a couple of dead bodies. Evan has also started experiencing blackouts where he does not remember what has happened. Then it follows Evan's life along with three of his friends, Kayleigh Miller (adult played by Amy Smart), her brother Tommy, and Lenny. The following four episodes are moments, which are referred to later in the movie. In each, Evan has blacked out certain memories.

Episode 1
At 8 years old, Evan is dropped off at his friend Kayleigh's house. Her dad has just picked up a new video camera, he wants to make a home movie with Kayleigh and Evan. Evan blacks out, and he finds himself naked with Kayleigh in the basement of the house. Mr. Miller has just finished making a movie, but Evan doesn't remember what  just happened.  Concerned about his blackouts, Evan's mother takes him to see a doctor at a psychiatric institution. The doctor notes that Evan's blackouts do not seem to have a physical cause, and suggests that they may be stress related. He recommends that Evan keeps a journal as treatment.

Episode 2
The film shows that Evan's father is in a psychiatric institution, and that they have never met. Evan's doctor suggests that his blackouts may be related to him not having a father figure and recommends that they meet in a controlled environment. They meet, but then Evan blacks out and wakes up to his father strangling him. The guards tear him off of Evan and proceed to beat his father with a police truncheon until he is dead.

Episode 3
At 13 years old, Evan and his friends are smoking and looking in the Millers' basement. Tommy finds a stick of dynamite, and they decide to use it for a prank. They light it and put it into a mailbox of a neighbour's house, they wait in the woods by the house for it to explode. Evan blacks out, he wakes up to them all running in a panic through woods dragging Lenny with them, who appears to be in shock but otherwise uninjured. Evan has no idea what has just happened, Lenny has to go to the hospital for treatment. The next scene shows us what happens next, Evan, Kayleigh and Tommy go to see a film. Tommy catches Kayleigh and Evan kissing and is angered by this sight. He beats up another boy, by his actions you can see that he hates Evan.

Episode 4
Still at 13 years old, Lenny has come back from hospital. Evan and Kayleigh go to visit Lenny, they wander into a junkyard, where they see smoke. They stumble acrossTommy, who has tied up Evan's dog in a bag, covered it in petrol and is preparing to set it on fire. Evan tries to stop Tommy, but Tommy picks up a stick and accidentally hits Kayleigh as he swings at Evan. Evan blacks out, and wakes up to find himself and Kayleigh cover with small amounts of blood, Lenny unhurt, and a burnt bag with the remains of his dog. 

Evan's mother has decided that they should move away. As the moving truck is pulling away, Evan see's Kayleigh and writes a note to show her through the window, the not reads "I'll come back for you." The film skips to present day, where Evan is 20 years old and is a student at university studying psychology and memory in particular. His roommate Thumper is a punk-goth type, and gets along well with Evan. They go out to celebrate after one of Evan's exams, the occasion being that he has not had a blackout in 7 years. They go to a bar where Evan picks up and brings a girl back to his dorm. She finds his stash of journals which he apparently has kept all through the years. He's embarrassed about them, but on her request he begins reading a out of one of the journals. Something very strange happens when he reads a part that approaches one of his blackouts as a kid. He's reading the about whta happens to his dog, and all of a sudden he's thrown back to that day, but with his adult memory intact. He finally sees what he had blacked out all these years. Evan is hit by Tommy with the stick and can't save his dog. Lenny is trying to untie the rope around the bag, when Tommy notices this he threatens him by saying he'll kill his mother in her sleep. Lenny backs off, and Tommy lights the bag. Evan then wakes up in present time to find that he has blacked out momentarily. Evan isn't sure whether this is a real memory, so he goes to visit Lenny. The adult Lenny is a somewhat disturbed individual. Evan asks whether he remembers the time that they found Tommy in the junkyard. Lenny barks out what Tommy had said "If you do anything, I'll kill your mother in her sleep!" Evan realizes that reading the entry leading up to a blackout, he can go back in time to that moment. He reads another passage in one of his journals leading up to the explosion which happens in espisode 3. He is taken back to the time him and his friends were waiting for the mailbox to explode. Lost in the moment, the cigarette falls out of his mouth this doesn't orginally happen in episode 3. however it falls onto his shirt, burning him. A car pulls into the driveway of the house, where a mother and baby get out. Before heading inside, the mother decides to pick up the mail. The four watch in horror as the mother and child go to the mailbox and it explodes. While Evan, Kayleigh and Tommy run from the scene, Lenny is totally stunned and has to be dragged away from the scene. 

Back in present time, Evan finds that he has a new scar from the cigarette burn that he didn't have before. From this, it shows that what happens in the past can happen differently, depending on his actions. However he is catious to see where his memories might take him. He goes back to visit Kayleigh, who he apparently has not seen since he moved away at 13. After she leaves her job working in a diner, he meets her and starts questioning her about the past. Kayleigh reveals that when her parents split up, she had a choice to live with her father, or with her mother who lived out of town. As they were childhood friends, she chose to live with her father as she didn't want to move away. Evan then starts asking her about the time they made a movie with her father. She gets very upset, and he realizes that they were abused and forced to do a childs porn film, and she leaves him crying. When Evan gets back to his dorm, he receives a message and finds out that Kayleigh has killed herself. He makes the active decision to go change the past. He reads the journal passage bringing him back to when Mr Miller made the home movie. Kayleigh and Evan are in the Mr. Miller's basement with costumes on, the video camera is running. Mr. Miller instructs them to take their clothes of, but then Evan challenges Miller in an adult tone, saying that what he is doing will ruin his daughter's life and lead to her commiting suicide. He adds that he should raise his daughter lovingly, and he should discipline his son Tommy, as he is a sick person. In a hard to believe development, this seems to convince Miller, who promises to change his ways.

Evan wakes up in present time to find himself in bed with Kayleigh. He then has new memories, as he changed how everything developed because of that one incident. Kayleigh grew up not being abused by her father and snuck away to meet him when he moved away. They started dating, and are now in college together. His relationships are totally different, for example he runs into his roommate Thumper from before he went back in time, who as a punk-goth type has nothing to do with the type of person Evan now is. However through all this back and forth Evan still has all his memories from before he went back.

Life seems good for Evan as he is with Kayleigh, but soon the negative side of his actions appear. Although Kayleigh grew up fine, Tommy became the object of Mr. Miller's anger growing up. An incident involving Evan, Tommy, and a baseball bat, results in Evan killing Tommy. Evan is sent to prison, and he manages to get hold of one of his journals so that he can change the past again. He reads the passage leading up to his dog being burnt again.

Evan, Kayleigh and Lenny are just about to come across Tommy, when Evan realizes that they have to be prepared this time so they can change the past, so he picks up a shard of metal and gives it to Lenny, telling him to use it to "cut the rope" (freeing his dog). However, during the incident with Tommy, he changes things himself, and convinces Tommy not to kill the dog. Just as Tommy puts down the stick, he is stabbed by Lenny with the metal shard and killed. Evan then wakes up in a very grim present day, that has changed as a result of Tommy's death. Lenny is now permanently restrained in a psychiatric facility, and Kayleigh is a crack whore. Evan realizes that he has to go back and change things again. He goes back to when he met his father for the first time,  with the knowledge he now has, he speaks with his father about how to change things. His father was institutionalized as he has the same "gift" that Evan has, he however was diagnosed to be delusional. His father tells him that he can't play God, all this changing the past has to stop. Evan refuses and his father lunges at him, strangling him as the guards grab at him. 

Back in the present, Evan then decides to go back to the explosion episode. Instead of watching the explosion, Evan runs out shouting at the mother to get away from the mailbox. As he gets to the mailbox, it explodes and he is thrown back. Evan wakes up in the present, to find that his roommate in college is a very well-adjusted and social Lenny. The bad side is that Evan doesn't have any arms, as they were removed due to the explosion. Other things have changed as well, Kayleigh is now Lenny's girlfriend, Tommy is no longer disturbed and they are all still best friends. Though he feels sorry for himself, he sees that everybody else is happier. He tries to kill himself, but fails as Tommy saves him. He then visits his mother in the hospital, who is dying of lung cancer. In this timeline his mother started smoking again because of the dynamite accident. This convinces him to try changing the past again.

He goes back to the incident that happens at Millers house, and trues to solve too many things at once. He grabs a candle, finds the stick of dynamite that is also in the basement. He tries to threaten Mr. Miller into not harming anyone, but this doesn't go to plan as he drops the lit stick of dynamite which explodes when Kayleigh picks it up.

Evan returns to the present as a psychiatric patient. The incident involving Kayleigh's death led to a string of events adding to Evan's present condition. As everything is wrong, and Kayleigh is dead, he has to try to change the past again. He goes in to see his doctor, and demands his journals. However, the doctor says that there are no journals. Suggesting all of his memories are a figure of his imagination that he has made up as a result of his guilt over his role in Kayleigh's death. In this timeline, it has resulted in him not keeping any journals at all. The doctor then comments that this is the same thing that happened his father, and in the end his father kept asking to see an old photo album that never existed. This provides a clue to Evan, that there are other ways to change the past. The next time he is in the doctor's office, his mother is also there. He asks his mother for the old home videos they did when he was a child. She promises to bring them. As he is leaving, he hears the doctor recommend that he be transferred to another hospital soon, so Evan realizes that he doesn't have much time left. Evan is sneaking around in the institution at night, breaking into the doctor's office, like in the first scene.As he finishes his note he starts playing a projector with one of his mother's old home videos. The guards are breaking into the office, but the film works and he is thrown back into the past, before of the previous episodes had happened.

There is a party with the first meeting between the young Evan and young Kayleigh. As they meet, Evan deliberately whispers into Kayleigh's ear: "I hate you and if you ever talk to me, I'll kill you and your family." She runs away from him crying.

Back to the present, he is with Lenny his roommate and asks "Where's Kayleigh?" to which Lenny replies "Who's Kayleigh?". They never became friends in this timeline. He goes back to the diner where Kayleigh was working in an earlier timeline, but she never worked there. She and her brother moved with their mother when their parents split up. Kayleigh, Tommy and Lenny have all turned out fine, given that none of the previous episodes have happened. Although he is not with Kayleigh, this is one life that Evan can accept, and he burns the journals.

This film is very confusing and extremely hard to follow, I had to watch it more than once before I was able to take in what was happening, as a thriller it is effective as it constantly keeps you guessing as to how him changing things will plan out for him in the end it is mysterious as you don't really know who he is because he's constantly changing himself, there is suspense which is added to the thriller genre as it keeps you hooked although I was confused I was still anxious about the outcome of the film as a thriller film I will give it a 4 out of 5 rating as I feel it kept me interested till the end and in suspense of what was going to happen to him after he was changing everything.