Such a frustrating disappointment

Highly Overrated But Still Good

good back-story, and good acting

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Dragonfly is an uneven supernatural thriller starring Kevin Costner who plays a bereaved husband Dr Joe Darrow whose pregnant wife Emily was killed in a bus accident while working for the Red Cross in Venezuela.Joe becomes convinced that somehow his wife is trying to contact him from the other side. This includes a dragonfly paperweight that suddenly rolls off a table and his wife's patients in hospital who are kids being treated for cancer claiming to have been contacted by her.Joe's friends become concerned that he is going mad and his hospital bosses want him to go on extended leave.Director Tom Shadyac resorts to horror film style jolts and suspense. However as Joe's behaviour becomes erratic we just end up thinking much early on why does he just not go to Venezuela to find closure especially as his wife's body was never recovered.Of course eventually that is what Joe does leading to a sentimental and a not very surprising ending.Costner is in his element by putting another maudlin performance but the film becomes too corny and mawkish too often.

Joe Darrow (Kevin Costner) loses his doctor wife Emily (Susanna Thompson) while working charity in Central America. He's haunted and her body is not found. Then he receives a Dragonfly Mobile in the mail ordered by Emily. He had conflicted with her about going. While working at the hospital, Joe encounters Jeffrey who comes back from the dead. He was Emily's patient from before and claims to have had afterlife visions. Then another kid Ben claims to have visions of the lady doctor. There are drawings of a wiggly cross. Sister Madeline had worked with the kids about their after-death experiences.It's a good ghost story but it does lack tension. There isn't anything scary in this. This is strictly a mystery and not a very mysterious one at that. There are no big twists and turns. Costner does a little too much overacting but there isn't much else that he could do with the material.

A lot of people seem to be saying the same thing here. "This movie surprised me. It snuck up on me. It transcended all its clichés." I agree, and there were plenty of clichés to transcend. This film runs against just about everything I believe about the world around me (www.cavemanlogic.com). It's full of supernatural claptrap that I wouldn't go for in a million years. Yet, despite all that, it's a hell of a piece of entertainment. I have no idea why it works so well. It almost embarrasses me to like it this much. I can see all the silliness and all the clichés from a mile away, yet the movie still grabbed me. And, my god, that's a cute baby at the end.

For some reason IMDb declares it necessary that any review contain a minimum of ten lines of commentary. Frankly, this film doesn't deserve the attention that much effort would entail. But allowing this film to go without comment would be unfair to anyone who may potentially waste two hours of their life on this tripe, and really, that's what it is. Kevin Costner has trod this ground before, and in an infinitely better manner, in Field of Dreams. Loss and redemption are themes familiar in a lot of movies, and for good reason. No thinking person has experienced the former without deeply considering the latter. Deep consideration is something that is apparently beyond the people responsible for this, um, effort.A films should have themes, subtext, meaning beyond what the characters say. This doesn't even come close. Hell, the stated message of this movie isn't even much of a message. Simply states, this movie is, in the most succinct way I can state it, unbridled pablum.