“The Butterfly Effect” is a rather ludicrous hybrid of two very good movies “Donnie Darko”, and “Frequency” and what results is the bastard child of the two. It’s a pretty dumb and utterly pretentious jumbled drama that is never sure what it’s trying to say, or what in fact it means. Is it a tragedy? Drama? Thriller? Science Fiction? Fractured Romance? Does the butterfly effect really apply to this, or is that theory just used as a plot device for this? I was never really sure, but what I was sure of is that this definitely is none of the more complex dimensions.
I’m among the legions of fans who grew up on cable television watching the geniuses at “Mystery Science Theater 3000” (Don’t know it? Look it up), or as we people in the know call it “MST3K” spoof films like “The Mole People” and “The Horror at Party Beach”. Yeah, it’s official I’m a nerd. Anyway, I spent many a long day watching Servo, Crow, and Mike watch bad movies only to trash them with their witty one-liners which often made me laugh, so when I was chosen to view the newest gag film “Don’t ask Don’t Tell”, I was more than willing to discover what lay ahead of me. “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” is a spoof, but it also becomes its own entity in the process as a film within a film. The people at “Refried Flicks” take the 1954 junk heap “Killer’s from Space”, an old schlock science fiction film directed by legendary director Billy Wilder’s younger brother W. Lee Wilder which starred Peter Graves and re-dub it, add new comedic scenes and masterfully edit this old piece of junk.
It ends here. Let’s hope. The finisher to the Matrix trilogy begins where we last left off from “Reloaded”. Now the Sentinels are making their way into Xion faster and faster and the crew are looking for a way to seal off their exit. Meanwhile Neo has awoken from his coma and is unaware of the traitor in their ranks. You’ll have to forgive me for not finishing, it gets a little confusing from there. But nonetheless you have to wonder why the classic “The Matrix” was so poorly received when the sequels made its way into theaters years later. Was The Matrix, after all, just a one trick pony? Just a fad? Or was it the Wachowski Brothers’ plan to have the sequels fail? Maybe the Wachoski’s didn’t give their all in the sequel story arcs, or is it all a trick of the architect?