nicholls_les This is a very good and in my opinion underrated movie.Edward James Olmos at his best as he portrays the evil Trujillo a man who like Hitler became more evil as he got more power. He was a sexual sadist with a preference for young Mulatto girls which is how we get to the story in this movie.The movie follows mainly Salma Hayek's character and her naivety until she realizes what Trujillo is really like.The Mirabal sisters' assassination at the very end is sad but at least we are not shown the gory details.One of Salma Hayeks best movies and I wish she did more like this instead of movies that exploited her looks and body. She is a very intelligent women and a good actress as this and the film Frida shows her to be.

uboy_corey So many things to say about this amazing movie. This has to be one of the saddest movies i have ever watched and the really sad part about it is that this is all true, Rafael Trujillo really existed and he really did most of the things shown in the movie. I think that this movie really brings out how it must have been when he ruled, his power, his fortune and the peoples attitude towards his rule. I would liked to have seen a little more of how badly he treated black people as I myself am a black person. I Think the role of Rafael Trujillo was portrayed well by the actor who played his role, actually I think he brought him out a little too well. After the movie I was left wondering if he was that inhumane.

Lee Eisenberg In case you've never heard of Rafael Trujillo, he seized power in the Dominican Republic in a 1930 coup, and ruled the country through terror, torture, and assassination over the next thirty years. "In the Time of the Butterflies" portrays the Mirabal sisters, who sought to overthrow him. The movie did a worthy job looking at their lives, although it could have gone into life under Trujillo's regime a little more. Salma Hayek plays Minerva Mirabal and Edward James Olmos plays Trujillo.Another interesting thing about Trujillo was that, although the US gladly propped him up for so many years, the CIA ended up assassinating him. You see, Trujillo had - like Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein - been using his position to enrich himself rather than the US. So, the CIA assassinated him in 1961. For further information, read "The CIA's Greatest Hits" by Mark Zepezauer.

jdizzlefizzle This adaptation of Julia Alvarez's novel is just terrible. I am not a huge fan of the novel itself, so I was not too worried when I heard the film divulged from the novel. I saw this film in lit class after we had read the novel, and about halfway through the film my teacher commented, "Why is this called 'In the Time of the Butterflies?'" I would have to agree with her on that account. The events of the film differ so greatly from that of the novel that I wonder if the same story is even being told.Worse than that, though, is the lack of depth or development in the characters. Instead of concentrating on all four sisters as the novel did, the film concentrates on Minerva as the main character. This is actually a good decision because the character development is so weak with just one story I would be frightened to imagine what it would be with all four stories. The character development is integral to the novel, and without it the film's melodrama seems comical.Worse than THAT is the acting in this movie. The one good part of this movie is Salma Hayek, as her acting, while one-dimensional (not at all like Minerva from the novel), is good, and she also looks very good. Everyone else in this movie acts really just TERRIBLY. I have seen many movies, many of which I did not like, but I say with a straight face that this movie has the worst acting I have ever witnessed in a film. Trujillo, the "villain," is the most wooden character I have ever seen on a professionally made movie. Slightly less annoying is that people are split half and half with accents and without accents, which is just sloppy. Cuba Gooding Jr. is horrendous in a throwaway role that has been changed quite a bit from the original novel.This film's biggest weakness is that we see the events that occur as outsiders. There is no character development and therefore no emotional attachment to the characters, which is integral to understand the tragedy that occurred to these sisters (I don't believe this is a spoiler since this is based on factual events). If you want to fully appreciate the Mirabal sisters as people then read Julia Alvarez's novel, "In the Time of the Butterflies." I would recommend this film only if you want to laugh at a movie because it is so bad.