THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT 2

The Butterfly Effect 2 (2006)

Actors: Eric Lively, Erica Durance, Dustin Milligan, Gina Holden, David Lewis
Directors: John R. Leonetti

Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Number of discs: 1

DVD Features:

Available Subtitles: English, Spanish
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
Commentary by director John R. Leonetti and co-producer Michael Stirling
"Altering Reality: On the Set of The Butterfly Effect 2" featurette

Movie: * *
Disc: * * ½

When it comes to pointless and meaningless sequels, The Butterfly Effect 2 is about as pointless and meaningless as existence and life itself. More of a remake — but without the originality and unpleasantness that made the original film so memorable — than a sequel in any real sense of the word, this straight-to-DVD effort features an all-new cast and has practically nothing to do with the original Butterfly Effect.

If you could travel back in time and change key events in your life, what would you change? Our yuppie protagonist (Eric Lively) travels back in time to prevent an accident involving the SUV he was driving, in which his best friends and girlfriend were killed. (You’d think that he’d travel back in time and not buy an SUV at all — after all, it is the unsafest vehicle when it comes to single vehicle accidents — but, no.) Not content with saving the life of his fiancée, he gets all materialist and grubby and travels back in time to indulge in some corporate back-stabbing and scoop a promotion that went to someone else in the start-up IT company he works for.

Things start going for a loop then as he ends up making his current present worse than it was, pretty much like in the original film. But whereas the first Butterfly movie was wildly over-the-top dealing with drug addiction, child molestation and prostitution, Butterfly Effect 2 is rather tame by comparison as the worst we have to deal with an irate investor who demands his money back.

THE DISC: Some trailers, a dry audio commentary by the film’s director and writer and an on-set featurette.

WORTH TI? Butterfly Effect 2 isn’t really as bad as some straight-to-DVD efforts gathering dust on your video store’s shelves right now, but it still feels as if you’re watching the same movie again as the novelty of the original film’s concept has long since worn off. Still, the cast is able and the production itself not as cheap as one would have feared (the credit title sequence is pretty cheesy though). There is some gratuitous sex, some unwarranted violence and an ending that makes no sense at all – a bit like life itself then.

RECOMMENDATION: A rental for when the good stuff is out and you don’t feel like watching Groundhog Day for the umpteenth time. (Although the excellent and similarly-themed Retroactive is always a good alternative if you haven’t checked it out already.)