A film
review by James Berardinelli, for ReelViews.net.
Dragonfly is the latest supernatural thriller
to pour all of its energy into the big, surprise twist at the conclusion.
However, for anyone who has been paying minimal attention to the
less-than-subtle clues left by director Tom
Shadyac, the gimmicky resolution will be obvious before the movie is 30
minutes old. That means more than an hour of fidgeting, twiddling one's
fingers, and waiting for the inevitable to happen, since Dragonfly has nothing to offer besides the ending and a few
unintentional laughs along the way. This is a tedious and insulting motion
picture. The only ones likely to be surprised by the payoff are those who
understandably dozed off fifteen minutes into the proceedings.
Kevin Costner plays Dr. Joe Darrow, an all-around
good guy who heads the Emergency Room at a Chicago hospital. By the time Dragonfly's opening credits have ended,
Joe's pregnant wife, Emily (Susanna
Thompson), has died in an avalanche in a remote part of Venezuela, where
she was working as a Red Cross volunteer. There's no body, though... hmmm, I
wonder if that's important? Joe, meanwhile, suffers from a debilitating
affliction commonly called SSS (Steven Seagal Syndrome), which results in his
walking stiffly, talking in a monotone, and never showing more than one or two
facial expressions. After Emily's death, Joe's condition worsens, and he now
begins to experience strange, supernatural occurrences, like his pet parrot
saying Honey, I'm home in the middle
of the night, then going berserk. Could Emily be trying to reach out to him
from beyond the grave? Eventually, Joe decides that the answers lie in the
cancer ward at the hospital, where his wife used to work. Kids there have been
dreaming about Emily, and Joe tries to piece together their visions, convinced
that, if he can solve the puzzle, he'll find... what? (We already know, but it
takes forever for him to find it out.) To drag out the movie's interminable
running length, he has meaningless conversations with his fun-loving, lesbian
neighbor (Kathy Bates) - usually
about her caring for the parrot while he's away, harasses a nun (Linda Hunt) who's literally half his
height, and plans a trip to go white-water rafting.
Hollywood
must have a tragically low opinion of the average viewer's intelligence to
foist something this poorly written and ineptly directed upon us. (I know this
isn't the first time I have made that observation.) Shadyac, who is responsible
for the likes of Ace Ventura: Pet
Detective and Patch Adams (he
must have an affinity for terminally ill children), italicizes every clue in
bright, bold letters. And, once you have figured out the ending, there remains
nothing to do but visit the rest room, pick up a tub of popcorn, and envy the
dozing person in front of you. With the exception of one sloppily-directed
scene that uses a pair of stock boo! clichés,
Dragonfly never manages even a
momentary fright, which is a bad sign for a ghost story.
The
creepiest thing about this movie is watching Kevin Costner's zombie-like
performance. One could easily imagine that, like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense (a movie that, to some
extent, this one tries to emulate), Costner's character is actually dead - or
at least he acts that way. Costner typically plays laconic individuals, but he
takes low-key a few steps too far on this occasion - Joe is comatose. We're
supposed to be invested in this character, not wondering if sticking a red-hot
poker up his butt would generate a reaction. The movie spares its other actors
any lingering shame by assuring that none of them makes more than a token appearance.
Dragonfly will undoubtedly trade heavily on
its Sixth Sense similarities - the
plodding male protagonist, the ghostly apparitions, and the gasp! ohmygod!
ican'tbelievethisishappening! ending. But, much as I dislike M. Night
Shyamalan's overrated Oscar nominee, it displays a level of craft that is
entirely absent from Shadyac's misfire. This film is so badly made that it
makes What Lies Beneath look like a
masterpiece of supernatural suspense. The dragonfly is a sleek, graceful insect
that doesn't deserve to have its reputation sullied by being associated with
this pile of offal.
Labels:
drama, fantasy, mystery, romance, thriller
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