The Butterfly Effect 3: The third time is absolutely not the charm

Another Day, Another Dimension

This week, we’re dragged back into the mind-bending, rule-breaking world of time travel with The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations. No, it’s not a good sign when a franchise hits the third installment and is still stuck on the “revelation” concept. Didn’t we have enough of those the first two times? This low-budget, direct-to-video flick attempts to reboot the whole schtick with a new poor sap, Sam Reide, who’s got the power to send his mind back to any moment he has a photograph of. Instead of using this gift to get an edge on the stock market or, heaven forbid, stop a war, he’s basically a cut-rate psychic helping the police solve murders, all while mainlining ice baths so his brain doesn’t boil. You’d think a genius with this kind of ability could afford a better cooling system than a rusty tub of ice cubes, but that’s Hollywood for you.

The stakes are raised, or so the film wants you to believe, when Sam’s dead girlfriend’s sister shows up, begging him to clear a man wrongly accused of the murder. Naturally, he breaks the cardinal rule of time travel—you know, the one about not altering the past—and the result is a domino effect of misery. Suddenly, there’s a new serial killer running around, and every jump Sam makes just makes things worse, warping his present into increasingly bleak realities. It’s a cheap attempt at a sci-fi/horror mashup, full of confusing plot twists and a cast of nobodies trying to look serious while discussing theoretical physics in a filthy apartment. Get ready for a lot of grimacing and exposition, folks, because this “revelation” feels more like a direct-to-DVD cry for help.

Review by Ben Dover

The third time is absolutely not the charm for The Butterfly Effect franchise. They call this one Revelations, and the biggest revelation is that they managed to squeeze another 90 minutes of this nonsense out of the same tired premise. It’s like watching a kid repeatedly poke a stick into a beehive and then act shocked when he gets stung. Our hero, Sam Reide—a handsome young man, naturally, because if he were a 60-year-old schlub like me, no one would watch—spends the whole movie crying about the rules of time travel while constantly breaking them. It’s the ultimate millennial mindset: “I know this is a bad idea, but I’m going to do it anyway, and then I’ll whine about the consequences.” The only sensible character is his mentor, Goldburg, who sounds like he’s about one more ‘temporal anomaly’ away from retiring to a desert island and burning all his notes.

The plot twists here are so convoluted you need a flowchart and a stiff drink to follow them. Sam jumps back to save his girlfriend, which results in more people dying. He jumps back again to fix that, and now he’s living on his couch, suspected of murder, and his sister is marginally less of a basket case. How does a trip that changes a murder victim’s identity also affect the quality of his sister’s life? The logic is pretzel-twisted, and the filmmakers just shrug and point to the title. “It’s the Butterfly Effect, dumb-dumb!” Yeah, I get it. Small change, huge effect. But when the changes are completely random and only serve to push the plot to the next cheap scare, it just feels lazy. It’s like they threw darts at a board labeled “Terrible Things That Could Happen” and stapled the results to the script.

And speaking of cheap scares, the whole “serial killer” element they injected into this one is just gross. It’s an attempt to shoehorn a slasher flick into a sci-fi thriller, and it’s about as subtle as a brick to the face. The murders are gratuitously gory, which I suppose is what the kids today call “horror.” Back in my day, a good horror movie messed with your head; now, it just messes with your stomach. But the worst part is the big twist, the “revelation” they promised. It’s a jaw-dropper, sure, but only because it’s so utterly ridiculous and borderline repulsive that you can’t help but groan. You’ve got a guy who can travel through time and a sister who also can, and their whole existence revolves around some weird, unhealthy, frankly Oedipal nonsense. It’s an ending that makes the entire film feel pointless and honestly, kinda icky.

Chris Carmack as Sam Reide is perfectly acceptable as the perpetually tormented protagonist. He spends the whole movie looking like he just smelled something foul, which, given the script, is probably just good acting. Rachel Miner, as his sister Jenna, is the only one who seems to be having any fun with the material, which makes sense, as she gets to be the nutcase. She pulls off the crazy eyes well, I’ll give her that. The rest of the cast are just placeholders, people to get murdered or to deliver painfully awkward lines of exposition.

The special effects are, shall we say, “budget-friendly.” Sam’s time jumps are marked by some blurry camera work and the digital equivalent of a kaleidoscope exploding, and the sound of a steam kettle going off. Not exactly 2001: A Space Odyssey. The music, on the other hand, is the typical throbbing, generic tension-filler that lets you know when you’re supposed to be scared, because the acting and direction sure aren’t doing the job. In the end, this movie is a clear sign that this particular well is dry. They should have just left the poor butterfly alone. But hey, it’s a direct-to-video sequel, so what did I expect? A miracle?

Starring

• Chris Carmack as Sam Reide: The perpetually frowning protagonist who uses his ability to time-travel (by focusing on a photograph) to solve cold cases. Spends half the movie submerged in a bathtub full of ice to prevent his brain from boiling, which I guess is the price of being a pseudo-superhero.
• Rachel Miner as Jenna Reide: Sam’s fiercely protective sister who monitors his vital signs during his time jumps. She’s the rock in his chaotic life, or so you think. She’s got issues, and they are big issues.
• Melissa Jones as Vicki: The attractive, often-shirtless bartender who Sam keeps running into, who changes her life trajectory with every jump he makes. She’s the film’s designated piece of ever-changing eye candy.
• Kevin Yon as Harry Goldburg: Sam’s older, wiser, and endlessly annoyed mentor. He’s the guy who invented all the time travel rules that Sam proceeds to ignore, and he sounds like a broken record telling Sam to stop making a mess.

Special Effects & Music

The special effects budget seems to have been spent on ice cubes and a few digital blur effects. The visual representation of Sam’s time jumps is repetitive: a dizzying, shaky-cam blur accompanied by a piercing, unpleasant sound effect that probably just irritates dogs and old men like me. The scenes of the gruesome murders rely on simple, practical gore, which, while effective in making you wince, feels out of place in a supposed science-fiction film. The music by Adam Balazs is the standard, modern, moody thriller score—lots of minor keys and ominous string work. It’s designed to make you feel tense even when absolutely nothing is happening on screen. It’s forgettable, which is probably the nicest thing I can say about anything in this movie.

Rating

Two Stars out of 5.

A half-hearted attempt at cheap thrills that wastes a decent, if over-used, premise. I’d rather watch paint dry. It’s less disturbing than The Butterfly Effect (2004) and better than The Butterfly Effect 2 but that is some really faint praise.

Synopsis and Plot Breakdown

Synopsis:

Sam Reide, a man born with the ability to project his mind back into his younger self at any point in his past (triggered by focusing on a photograph of the moment), secretly helps the police solve cold cases. His strict rule, enforced by his mentor and his sister, Jenna, is to only observe and never interfere, lest he trigger the catastrophic ‘butterfly effect.’ When Elizabeth, the sister of Sam’s murdered ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, convinces him to use his power to prove an innocent man is on death row for her sister’s murder, Sam breaks the cardinal rule. His interference creates a new, far worse timeline in which a serial killer—the “Phantom Killer”—begins slaughtering people, and Sam himself becomes the prime suspect. Every subsequent attempt to “fix” the timeline only makes things exponentially worse, scrambling his memories and plunging him into a spiral of paranoia and danger, until a final, disturbing “revelation” exposes the true, horrifying identity of the killer.

Plot Breakdown:

1. Introduction to Sam’s Power: Sam uses his power (by concentrating on a photo while in an ice-filled bath) to “solve” a crime as a psychic consultant to Detective Glenn. His sister, Jenna, monitors his vitals, and his mentor, Goldburg, warns him about the dangers of altering his past. We learn Sam previously saved Jenna from a house fire, which cost their parents’ lives—the source of his strict rule.
2. The Case of Rebecca Brown: Elizabeth Brown, the sister of Sam’s murdered ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, convinces Sam to prove the man on death row for the crime, Lonnie, is innocent. Despite Jenna and Goldburg’s warnings, Sam agrees and jumps back to the night of the murder.
3. The First Change: Sam tries to save Rebecca but only manages to find her already dead. His brief interaction with a drunken Elizabeth causes a temporal ripple. He returns to the present to a new, worse timeline: Elizabeth is now the first victim of a new, unidentified serial killer, and Sam is a former suspect.
4. The Spiral: Sam makes successive jumps, each time trying to save one victim or gather new evidence, but each jump only shifts the timeline into an increasingly nightmarish version. He loses his job, his car, and his credibility. He begins to find evidence linking himself to the murders.
5. The Serial Killer’s Trail: The “Phantom Killer” continues their gruesome work, targeting people Sam knows, including his bartender friend, Vicki. Detective Glenn arrests Sam, who convinces him to let him go by revealing a private memory from the past (which Sam observed during one of his jumps).
6. The Confrontation and Revelation: Sam is led to Goldburg’s greenhouse, where he finds his injured mentor. Goldburg reveals that he knows the killer is another time traveler. The killer then traps Sam and reveals herself to be Jenna. She is also a time traveler and has been committing the murders (and manipulating Sam’s previous jumps) out of an incestuous desire to eliminate anyone Sam cared for or who could be a threat to their relationship.
7. The Final Jump: To stop her, Sam realizes he can’t simply kill her in the present without causing another chaotic ripple. He makes one final, tragic jump back to the day of the house fire. Instead of saving Jenna and losing his parents, he saves his parents and intentionally leaves Jenna to die in the fire, eliminating her from the timeline.
8. The New Present: Sam awakens in a new, perfect timeline. His parents are alive, he is married to Elizabeth, and they have a daughter named Jenna. He has created a happy reality, but at the ultimate cost of his sister’s life in the past.

Five Famous Quotes from the Movie

1. “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.”
2. “There are two rules. You never jump back to alter your own past, and you never jump unsupervised.”
3. “You’ve seen for yourself what happens if you break these rules. Your brain could boil!”
4. “Every time you jump back, things get worse for you. You don’t know what happened two weeks ago.”
5. “I’m not a psychic. I time travel. I can go back to wherever I was, and I can change things.”

Five Notes from the Movie

1. The Time-Travel Method Change: Unlike the first film where the protagonist uses journals and blackouts, and the second where the character uses his mind and an external trigger, Sam in the third film uses a photograph as the focal point for his mind to travel back to the specific moment and location of the photo. He needs the ice bath to keep his body temperature down during the “jump.”
2. Original Ending: The first Butterfly Effect (2004) famously had a dark, widely discussed original ending where the protagonist, Evan, realizes his power only causes misery and chooses to go back to the moment of his birth and commit suicide by strangling himself with his own umbilical cord, ensuring he never exists to hurt anyone. This third film echoes that theme with Sam’s ultimate sacrifice.
3. Limited Theatrical Release: Like the second film, this movie did not receive a wide theatrical release in the United States and was primarily distributed direct-to-video, eventually being included in the 2009 “8 Films to Die For” horror film festival line-up.
4. The Incestuous Killer: The ultimate twist revealing Jenna as the time-traveling serial killer motivated by an incestuous love for her brother is one of the more controversial and unique aspects of the franchise, changing the genre from a straightforward sci-fi thriller into a bizarre horror-family drama.
5. Setting the Rules on Fire: The movie establishes new “rules” for Sam’s time travel, including the ability to jump to any photograph. However, it completely breaks the previously established rule that a time traveler cannot meet or interact with their past self, which adds to the general plot confusion and inconsistency with the other films.

Trailer