Donnie Darko (2001) vs The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko.

ONly saw TBE, so I'[ll say..

The Butterfly Effect.

Donnie Brasco.

Donnie Darko but the original, not the director's cut with all the pages of the book spliced in. Completely destroyed the movie for me.

I guess the only people to reply to this thread are Donnie Darko fans. I remember seeing Donnie Darko when it first came out over twenty years ago and thought it was an overhyped, deliberately incomprehensible mess, a movie clearly in love with how clever it was, and that inspired a cult-following of people in love with how clever they were for liking that art-house turd. Apparently there are other edits of the movie where the story makes more sense, or a website that explains what the hell was going on with the wormholes and time-travelling ghosts and whatnot, but I just couldn't be bothered. See it if you must and decide for yourself, but my vote goes to The Butterfly Effect.

What I liked about Butterfly Effect was the underlying theme that so much of a person's life is determined by events completely out of their control, which is a discomforting concept not often seen in film.

Donnie Darko overall, Butterfly Effect is still good. I have a feeling the Butterfly Effect filmmakers were influenced by Donnie Darko and wanted to make something more commercial.

Both are entertaining but I prefer Darko.

Butt Effect has a manic energy and, for a fun and trashy sci-fi movie shoves a lot of darkness in your face like paedos, naked kids, suicide, infanticide, dog-burning, dismemberment, mental illness, prison rape etc.

Darko is more… patient and, despite the director being a pretentious douche and goading you to read his nonsense book which appears in the film to fully understand WTF is going on, it works well as an engaging story with believable characters cooking up some nice drama.