The idea of Ashton Kutcher, star of the quality film Dude, Where's My Car?, taking on a non-comedic role must appear to many as rather absurd. After all, Kutcher - best known either as the head prankster on MTV's show Punk'd or for his real-life role as megastar Demi Moore's young boyfriend - definitely gives off the impression of being a sort of walking punch line. It seemed very likely, then, that Kutcher's new drama, The Butterfly Effect, would be nothing more than a straightforward depiction of all the ways it is possible for one actor to humiliate himself. Surprisingly, although The Butterfly Effect is rather pitiful as a whole due to a wide variety of problems, Ashton Kutcher is responsible for few of them - in fact, he may be one of the less bothersome aspects of the movie.

The expectation-surpassing quality may be due to the fact that he has been given a lot of material with which to work. Kutcher's character, Evan Treborn (played at earlier ages by The Patriot's Logan Lerman and Unbreakable's John Patrick Amedori), has been saddled with a past that holds enough trauma to fill up an entire week's worth of programming on the Lifetime Network. Before even entering college, poor Evan has endured everything from abuse at the hands of a pedophile (Pulp Fiction's Eric Stoltz - who has made an entire career out of playing sleazy creeps), to a traumatic separation from his childhood sweetheart Kayleigh (Amy Smart from Rat Race), to witnessing the gruesome deaths of several adorable things. It's actually quite impressive how the filmmakers expand upon the popular technique of killing off "the dog" or "the baby" to elicit instant audience sympathy; here they do both within minutes of each other. This life is any person's nightmare - and any actor's dream.

Fortunately, for the protection of his sanity,as well as to provide a handy device for moving the plot along, Evan possesses a strange disorder making him prone to blackouts - an affliction shared by his institutionalized father - which occur more often over the horrible events of his life. The only way he remembers these events having taken place is through the journals he has meticulously been keeping.

One night Evan, rereading his journals, realizes that he has the power inside himself not just to find out what lies behind all those blacked-out memories, but also the ability to go back in time and redo all of those moments for the better. Although Evan could easily refrain from messing around with the space-time continuum, he's racked with guilt from having left behind Kayleigh, her tortured brother Tommy (William Lee Scott, Identity), and their unsettlingly troubled friend Lenny (Elden Henson, Idle Hands) to the mercy of these emotionally-scarring events. He feels compelled to try to alter his life until he makes everything right, despite the naturally dangerous consequences.

The Butterfly Effect takes its name from the most well-known example of explaining chaos theory: that a butterfly flapping its wings in one place can, through a chain reaction, cause a catastrophic hurricane in another part of the world. In other words, the tiniest event can create a drastic reaction. If a plot based on this concept sounds at all familiar, it's because it has been done before in Back to the Future, Groundhog Day and, while we're at it, a certain Simpsons episode.

The Butterfly Effect does find some new areas to explore with this theme. One of these is a scene where Evan has finally worked out an alternate universe in which everyone ends up happy except for him as he definitely gets the short end of the good fortune. Before, he seemed unbelievably good in his intentions, dead-set on erasing all of the problems of his friends, and it's an interesting turn of events when Evan's face registers a look of pure, unashamed self-pity and hatred. Suddenly, a wholly new dimension of the character is realized; Evan may have godlike abilities, but he's nothing more than a young man attempting to repair his life with tools he doesn't even understand. He knows there's a part of him that doesn't want to be burdened with this responsibility. It's an interesting play on the whole concept of time travel, as well as a well-played note in Kutcher's otherwise unoffensively bland performance.

The Butterfly Effect continually makes an effort to hover over whatever low level it takes for a movie to receive the label of being "bad" - in some ways, in fact, it even approaches what might be termed "not bad at all." This is not to say that it falls into the realm of being a "good" film, under any stretch of the imagination. The movie is blatantly clichd, melodramatic and, dare I say, flat-out ridiculous at times. Still, many of its faults are, if not defendable, then at least excusable. The Butterfly Effect has a young cast, inexperienced directors (this is the first film directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber), a hole-ridden plot and an often-disjointed script. Yet it still gives off distinct vibes of desperately wanting to be a good movie. After sitting through at least three different trailers for generic serial killer movies before The Butterfly Effect started, any film which makes even the slightest conscious effort to be unique can be a relief.

The Butterfly Effect not only aims away from deliberately insulting the intelligence of its audience (except for that manipulative dog and baby), it also puts up an honest fight to distinguish itself in its own way. The ending, for instance, keeps admirably far away from a saccharine tying-up of loose ends that would normally be expected from a typical Hollywood thriller. The movie's general lack of accomplishment becomes a disappointment rather than a cause for annoyance because of its potential. Unfortunately, this caterpillar never turns into a butterfly.