Sadly Over-hyped

Brilliant and touching

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Since his fall from being in the Hollywood "A" list, Antonio Banderas hasn't been terribly successful in finding quality direct to video productions to star in, and "Black Butterfly" doesn't do anything to break him out of the doldrums. I will admit that I never got to the point of being bored by what I was seeing. However, all the same the movie failed to engage me. It's a very slow-moving movie, taking much longer to get to key points in its storyline. It takes about 40% of the movie for the Banderas character to realize that he might be unsafe about the hitchhiker he has invited into his home. But what's worse about the movie is the two (yes, two) twists the movie decides to pull off in its last half hour. While I admit I didn't see the first twist coming, right after it was pulled off, it instantly became ludicrous when thinking about it. And I thought about it a lot. Even worse is the second twist at the very end of the movie, a clichéd and oh-so-tired twist that essentially makes what we have seen up to that point a waste of time. Had the movie instead gone the more logical and believable route, and ditched those two twists, we might have had an okay thriller. But as it is, it will most likely frustrate and anger viewers.P.S. Attempts to pass the shot in Italy countryside as being Colorado are very unsuccessful.

This movie became awful at the end when it turns out to be all a dream/imagination. Everybody is commenting on how the plot has a lot of twist and how it could have been better and how actors didn't act their part properly......IT DOESN't MATTER!! cause Banderas was dreaming it anyway. They could have put a flying car before he woke up and it still doesn't matter because he was dreaming it anyways. The movie was OK, and the fact that it was a dream made it bad.....and because it was a dream, the story line or plot DOES NOT MATTER......To sum up the movie it was about a writer that got "stuck" on writing a story and had a dream of a story, the end.

SPOILER ALERT Antonio Banderas was terrific. Others were average at best. This was a great movie because it was so believable until the last 10 minutes. Some Hollywood executive screwed up the movie by asking for a twist ending. And isn't that exactly what Antonio Bandera's character hated his agent, asking him to change his book To make it more appealable to the masses ? So ironic.

This is really two movies crammed into one movie. The first part is about 1hour and 33 minutes long. #2 is about 15 seconds long. At the end. The very end. Movie #1 is pretty good. Not great, but good acting overall, good set design, pretty good script. #1 occasionally dragged for a couple minutes at a time but then something interesting would happen (usually Meyers). Banderas was excellent as the boozing going- down-the-drain writer. The ending of Movie #1 fit the picture and made sense in an adult way. I would rate Movie#1 at about 6.5. Movie #2. You have got to be kidding me. Who let this stupid idea into an otherwise acceptable piece of work. Any editor worth their salt would have snipped this ridiculous and viewer-insulting little bit of crap out of the movie without telling anybody. Fortunately #2 only lasts about ten or fifteen seconds at the very end of the movie so if you're fast on the draw you can save yourself. If Movie#2 remains part of Movie#1 I'd drop my rating to 4. And I'm being generous here as #2 really ruined an otherwise interesting film. Combined rating is a 5. And they should consider themselves lucky to get it too.