‘Butterfly’ (2025) Prime Video Series Review - Unexceptional Show, Good Performances

Rebecca (Reina Hardesty), an assassin, pretends to be pregnant to get close to her target. After killing him, she tries to flee the building through the elevator, but one of the bodyguards, who's in the lift with her, receives orders to catch a pregnant woman, and he and Rebecca start fighting in the elevator. There comes a moment when the bodyguard stabs Rebecca in the stomach, only to realize that her belly is not really fat — he gets cheated. A few minutes later, another character named David (Daniel Dae Kim) stops two men from pursuing Rebecca by blocking their way with a baby stroller. Their car hits the stroller, and they get out of the vehicle to check on the baby's condition. The baby cries all right, but he turns out to be a doll. A few more minutes later, Juno (Piper Perabo), Rebecca's boss, threatens a man by saying she will kill his five-year-old daughter. This time, a baby is actually in peril. How should you take these scenarios? At first, it all looks like some sort of amusing joke, especially the moments involving David and Rebecca. However, these incidents also subtly set up the theme of Butterfly: the turbulent relationship between parents and children. We soon find out that David is Rebecca's father, and as far as she knows, he has been dead for nine years. So when he suddenly reveals himself to her (or more accurately, he lures her to come to his location), she becomes both upset and shocked. How is he alive? Where was he hiding all these years? Why didn't he try to contact her earlier? David assures Rebecca that he just wanted to keep her safe, but from what? Naturally, Rebecca doesn't immediately trust David. Let's just say she doesn't run towards him for a hug. 

A significant part of Butterfly, then, focuses on the mending of this father-daughter bond. David and Rebecca slowly become comfortable around each other and also start going on missions together. But apart from Rebecca and David, we also have Juno and her son, Oliver (Louis Landau), who go through their own rough patch, fueled by suspicions and doubts. The ingredients are all there for an intense, meaty drama. Butterfly should have soared beautifully into the sky. Yet, it barely manages to leave the ground; it remains bland, okayish, bearable. The material's dramatic potential is squandered at every point, at every turn. Take David and Rebecca, for instance. Here is a reunion that occurs after nine long years. Still, the conversations between them are mostly plot-related. They don't discuss how much the world around them has changed since they were last together. There is no conversation about any new habits or hobbies they might have developed or new tastes they might have acquired. David and Rebecca eventually deal with a senator (Charles Parnell), but they don't talk about his politics or their own political inclinations. Whatever little personal discussion happens between them (like Rebecca and David remembering a game they used to play), it leads to nothing explosive or intimate (when David says the name of that game, it only gives rise to Rebecca repeating the same line about him leaving her and starting a new family elsewhere). 

The scenes between David and his in-laws are awkwardly humorous — they are shot with some feeling, some sense of atmosphere. Otherwise, Butterfly evokes neither excitement nor suspense. Every scene, including those involving stunts and action, can only be defined as functional. They depict what the filmmakers have in their mind and what's written in the script without much creativity or vigor. They just do their job like a nine-to-five corporate worker who wants to leave the office as soon as possible. There is also no chemistry between the actors. The actors, though, are fine, and they provide an illusion of chemistry between their characters. Someone like Haesoo Park, as Yong Shik, conveys years of history between him and David through his performance. We see Yong Shik and accept that he has known David for a long time. And notice David during the scene where he receives bad news on the phone at a market. He mourns for a few seconds, realizes the news' implication, and begins to plot his escape from the market. He is a true professional. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the actors do more for their roles — they do more to elevate a thin material. If Butterfly is watchable, it's only due to its actors. The show, meanwhile, keeps shooting itself in the foot, which is clear from its treatments of threads like Rebecca and Juno's mother-daughter-like alliance. Rebecca could very well be the child Juno had always wanted. Yet, when she, with David, goes after this mommy figure, the conflict, the tension that should have naturally erupted, feels not muted, but absent. Instead, it's reduced to a last-minute excuse to pave the way for a second season. Yes, Butterfly promises to return in the future — it ends with a cliffhanger, which is thoroughly lazy and ridiculous. Movies used to tell stories like these within two hours, without unnecessarily leaving them open for a sequel. Then again, Butterfly is what happens when shows are treated as content, as fodder for a hungry monster (the streaming services). Don't be surprised then if I say that this butterfly doesn't have wings. It's barely breathing; it's almost dead.

Final Score- [4/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times