MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:32 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right
| Dragonfly Movie Stats & Links |
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| Starring: | Kevin Costner, Susanna Thompson, Kathy Bates, Joe Morton, Linda Hunt |
| MPAA Rated: | PG-13 |
| Released By: | Universal Pictures |
| Release Date: | 2002 |
| Kiddie Movie: | Nah. Leave them at home. |
| Date Movie: | She might get a little scared and grab your arm. |
| Gratuitous Sex: | One kinda sensual scene, but nothing bad, other than some jungle tribe women with their breasts exposed – kinda like National Geographic. |
| Gratuitous Violence: | Nah. |
| Action: | Nah. |
| Laughs: | Only as it got dumb. |
| Memorable Scene: | None. |
| Memorable Quote: | None. |
| Directed By: | Tom Shadyac |
Dear Movie Promotion People,
Please stop telling me in your ads that this movie “has a surprise ending” that you shouldn’t tell anyone, it will astound you, it will make you inspired, or some other crap like that. You want to know why? Because then I, the person who sees a few too many movies, will be able to ruin the surprise ending myself because of the obvious foreshadowing that most likely will be in the film.
Sincerely,
The Dude on the Right
I try sometimes not to pay attention to the foreshadowing in a movie, but when you tell me there is a surprise ending, it just makes it so much easier to find it. Such was my case with “Dragonfly.”
“Dragonfly” gives us Kevin Costner in another role where we wonder what might have possessed him to take the role. It’s not that it’s a bad role, it’s just that it is a role that doesn’t fit him, nor his acting ability. For this one he is a doctor, Dr. Joe Darrow to be specific, and his wife apparently dies in an avalanche accident in Venezuela. He’s having a pretty hard time with her death, especially with his atheistic ways and the fact that they didn’t find the body, but then things start happening. First we find the connection between Emily (Susanna Thompson), his wife, and the whole dragonfly thing. Now the good doctor has a dragonfly paperweight mysteriously role around in the bedroom, little kids in the hospital cancer ward have messages from Emily to Joe telling him to meet her at the rainbow, only where is this mystical rainbow? Then his parrot goes berserk, the little kids have been making drawings, and yes, eventually the Doc figures out where he should go. I could just go ahead and give the ending away, but I’ll let you go to the movie and see if you can figure it out before it happens just like I was able to do.
The problem with “Dragonfly” isn’t that it is a bad movie, I think it’s just that it tries too hard to push this message of Doctor Joe getting a message from beyond. Other movies have done it subtly, with great success, and the messages from the little kids when they have their near-death experiences is fine, but when the scene comes where Joe starts to pack away Emily’s stuff, then gets distracted by strange noises in the house, then comes back to the room and all of her stuff is back in its original place, it just took the movie to the wrong level and totally tosses out any credibility the movie was trying to have. And that’s too bad.
“Dragonfly” does have some potential, and the ending is touching, but I saw it coming a mile away. Costner does his best to pull of the role, but as the movie became more of a joke than something I could take seriously, well, it was almost too bad his performance was wasted, as well as that of Kathy Bates as his lawyer/neighbor, trying to help Joe through his wife’s death. The movie went for cheap “shock-factor” things, like the little boy, dead on the table, suddenly opening his eyes, and it really didn’t need to because the story was already there.
In the end I’ll give “Dragonfly” 2 ½ stars out of 5. Catch a matinee, or wait for the video, but just don’t expect too much.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
Like I said before, though, with all of these things going on they just don’t come together to make a captivating movie. I liked the story, the quality kills were pretty quality, and Courteney looks good in underwear, but even with all of this it didn’t hit the level of “Pulp Fiction” that this movie seemed to be shooting for, and it could have. Kevin Costner was in one of his best roles in a while, Kurt Russell was great as the bad but still good guy, Courteney played it well as the dudette not knowing if she should be in it for money or for love, and Ice-T was just too cool.