The Butterfly Effect 2 -- 2006 -- R

Why this is rated R is quite beyond me beyond a minimal amount of profanity. It wasn't terribly messy, but did have a scene that would send homophobes running for the hills. Maybe that did it.

Anyway, this is a sequel to the underrated flick, The Butterfly Effect, that lost its steam because Ashton Kutcher did a pretty decent job in the lead role, but people couldn't handle him not doing comedy. The plot is basically the same: guy has girl who dies, discovers he can relive moments of his life, and does so to fix things, but ends up screwing them up even worse.

While Evan in the first film used diaries to relive these hidden moments, our hero here uses photographs. It's a decent twist but not used very well given that Nick failed to take the obvious, easy, and ironically most effective road to fixing the problems in the two most critical instances. If you just accept it, though, it isn't bad all the way up to the end which was just horrible.

In a nutshell, we have four friends (two couples) who are out at a lake side celebrating the birthday of Nick's girlfriend. He take her off and she's got something to tell him, and he predictably (on both counts) has something to tell her first and is a certified workaholic who simply must get an urgent call on his cell phone to go back immediately. They drive back, he gets a blow out, and they are wiped out by an oncoming semi. He survives but with only half a life.

He discovers that by looking into pictures, he can relive moments of his past and even change them. He first discovers this by looking at a picture of himself driving right before the accident. Here is mistake number one. He tells his girl to buckle her seatbelt. The blow out occurs. He manages to get the car started and drive off just as the semi passes...and then he runs into a tree, but everyone survives. My thought. Why not just pull over? Change the tire, even?

Anyway, he gets the girl back and more stuff happens to where the job is bad. He tries to fix the job, but in doing so loses the girl. He tries to go back to the beginning, and while the job fix made sense, the final throw back to the beginning did not. In fact, it was nothing short of dumb. So dumb, in fact, that I'll break my spoiler rule and give you the simplicity, and then what these geniuses did here.

Early in the film, the lovers were sitting by the waterside. After his workaholic call, he promises to come back next year and not bring a cell phone. She wants to smash the phone. He agrees to let her. My writer bells go off and I feel like the way the movie will end is for him to go back to this moment and smash the phone or otherwise make it impossible to take the call. Film plays out in long-winded fashion, and we get to the point where (ta-da!) he gets a picture of that party moment. Well, they walk to the waterside, and it's all very sweet when...he breaks up with her. WHAAAT!!!!!!????

Sure, buck predicatability, but at least make it believable. By avoiding that call, he misses the meeting and no one gets hurt in the blow out. Just that easy, and the film ends on a high note. But no. In fact, it goes downhill from there, but it's too much.

So, it was a good concept and the plot, admittedly, is not too full of holes. The twists play out just fine, and to be honest is not a bad film to watch. But the idiocy of the ending killed me.