The Movie:

Say what you will about Ashton Kutcher, but The Butterfly Effect, which came out in 2004, was actually a pretty cool and surprisingly well made sci-fi/horror/thriller. The less said about the 2006 straight to video sequel, the better, but here we are in 2009 and a third entry in the series shows up as part of the Lionsgate After Dark Horrorfest collection. Unfortunately, The Butterfly Effect III: Revelations, while slightly better than the second film, doesn't do the series any favors.

The movie follows the exploits of Sam Reed (Chris Carmack), a young man who has the ability to travel back in time. This handy ability has lead to Sam working as a case solver for the local police, who hire him to time travel to the scenes of various unsolved crimes so that he can tell them who the killers were. But, as anyone who has seen a time travel movie knows, if Sam screws up and changes even one thing by being there, he throws everything out of wack and cause a 'butterfly effect,' essentially changing history for good. Complicating things even further for Sam is the fact that when he gets back to his own time, his memories are often foggy, and he really can't understand or explain what has happened to him.

Sam has generally got a good handle on things, however. He plays the game by the rules and is pretty good at his job. This all changes, however, when his girlfriend gets murdered and he's accused of killing her. Rather than rot on death row, Sam decides to figure out who the killer was and decide that maybe, if Sam intervenes, they can change history and prevent her murder before it happens. But every attempt Sam makes seems to make things worse than they were before...

By taking a different approach to the whole 'butterfly effect' theory that started with the first movie and was more or less rehashed in the second film, Butterfly Effect III: Revelations at least tries something new. By adding the crime/police procedural elements to the story the script, penned by Holly Brix, winds up as a moderately interesting one. Director Seth Grossman, to his credit, keeps the movie clipping along at a fairly solid pace and the cinematography from Daniel J. Stoloff is certainly more than competent, and in fact, at times is quite impressive. On a completely technical level the movie is just fine. A shame then that the whole science/logic angle that absolutely needs to stay consistent for a movie like this to be effective is entirely haphazard. Sam does things when he travels back in time that obviously have effects on the present, but why? There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to why Sam's actions cause the effects that they do when he returns other than that they probably sounded cool at the time. Granted, some of them are interesting enough, and entertaining enough at that, but that's not quite enough if your brain starts trying to sort out the reasoning behind Sam's mess.

The performances are perfectly fine and the score is decent enough and this film isn't a complete disaster but when you get to the finale you can't help but feel that the ending was tacked on, almost rushed even. And then you keep thinking about it and start wondering why Sam's character didn't do this or that to fix things and you start to realize just how many logic gaps and plot holes there really are and then the cool concept, decent technique and reasonably eerie set pieces just don't seem like enough anymore.

The Video:

The Butterfly Effect 3 is presented in an average quality 2.40.1 anamorphic widescreen progressive scan transfer. Color reproduction looks a little bit on the flat side in some scenes, though skin tones look lifelike and healthy. Black levels stay pretty strong throughout the movie though shadow detail is a little washy in spots. The source material was obviously very clean as there aren't any problems with print damage, nor are there any obvious issues with mpeg compression artifacts. Some really mild edge enhancement pops up once or twice but if you're not looking for it, you're probably not going to notice it. Overall, the movie looks very good on DVD, even if it isn't ever particularly remarkable.

The Audio:

The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track sounds pretty decent and it comes with optional subtitles in English and Spanish. Channel separation is good, even if it could have been a little more aggressive during some of the more intense scenes. Dialogue is clean and clear and the track is well balanced without any hiss or distortion rearing its ugly head. Bass response is good and the score sounds very nice.

The Extras:

This disc is pretty light on extras, containing trailers for a dozen or so other Lionsgate horror and action DVD/Blu-ray releases, an episode of the Ms. Horrorfest competition (a dull hour of moderately attractive goth chicks screaming, drinking wine, and goofing off), animated menus and chapter selection.

Overall:

The first film in the series was a surprisingly good thriller. Too bad the sequels are so completely dire, and this third film doesn't really improve much on the lousy second entry. Lionsgate's DVD looks and sounds just fine but the extras are completely lame the feature, while it has moments and ideas that work, gets mired under its own basic principals. Skip it.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.