Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Dragonfly Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 20, 2020

Dragonfly could be considered a ghost story of sorts, the tale of a widower haunted -- or maybe helped -- by the spirit of his recently deceased wife who is attempting to communicate critical information to him from beyond the grave. The film derives its name from her favorite creature which has a penchant for popping up throughout the story in ways that draw her husband towards his future. The man is understandably both terrified of the prospect and welcoming of the possibility that something of his past life remains that will give him a brighter future. The movie is full of potential but unfortunately forges a rather lackluster path towards an admittedly moving if not manufactured end; it’s too bad the lead-up is built on and around routine if not scattered plot elements and a tone and tenor that can’t quite decide if the film is medical thriller, horror story, broken hearted romance, or pretty much anything or everything else and in between.

Joe (Kevin Costner) and his wife Emily (Susanna Thompson) are physicians. She’s pregnant and working in South America; he has stayed behind in the States. She dies in a rockslide fleeing from torrential, flooding rains. A grieving Joe is ordered by his supervisor, Hugh (Joe Morton), to take some time off and clear his head after making questionable decisions at work. Soon thereafter, Emily’s dragonfly paperweight -- a Valentine’s gift from her husband -- falls to the floor and rolls across the room when nothing natural short of an earthquake should have moved it. It’s a sign from Emily. But what does it mean? Joe chooses to return to work to care for Emily’s pediatric patients, hoping to find an answer in her children. When a child is rushed into the ward, Joe believes he hears the boy screaming for him, even though the patient is unconscious and silent. The boy dies, but it’s not the first time. Turns out Jeffrey (Robert Bailey, Jr.) is well known in medical circles, and he was one of his wife’s favorite patients. His heart stops and starts with some regularity and he begins drawing the same symbol over and over, a symbol that will ultimately push Joe towards his future.

As it becomes obvious Emily is speaking to Joe, directly to him by manipulating his world (read: the dragonfly memento he bought her for Valentine’s Day) and through others, the film makes a turn from tragedy with medical mystery bend to tepid terror as Joe struggles through the very real possibility that he is in communication with a deceased spouse, à la Ghost. The film winds up as something of a modest Adventure film, ever so slightly reminiscent of something like Romancing the Stone. So it goes through various permutations which altogether make some narrative sense in the greater context, but it's a narrative that feels stretched thin and incapable of finding a steady, rhythmic heartbeat. It feels too cluttered and is perhaps most damaged by a relative lack of tangible grief on Joe's end; the character seems to take the loss too much in stride, not hitting that critical emotional current that the audience can ride to the film's somewhat unexpected and satisfying, but also fairly cheesy, finale.

It boils down to this: the movie simply has no soul, even though the story is driven by a soul calling out to a grieving husband. It’s an ironic disconnect that is not helped by the chunky script and haphazard editing and certainly not Costner’s performance which fails to offer any sense of connection to the story. He seems ever distant, unable or unwilling to dig deeply into Joe. As mentioned before there’s not a feel for his grief and there’s a stifled, stymied approach to the material in general. Whether quizzing kids in the hospital or frantically seeking translation for a couple of natives who may know something about his wife’s death, there’s little genuine engagement with the character in play. None of the performances are very good, frankly, and the entire production just seems to drift through the process, content to get something committed to camera with a semblance of proficiency but little care for process and polish.

Dragonfly Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dragonfly buzzes onto Blu-ray with a 1080p AVC encoded presentation. The image is OK: hardly great, hardly terrible. It shows mild signs of digital processing. Grain appears on the unnaturally sharp side and presents without much character to it. Details are decent -- the image shows no major signs of extreme scrubbing to wear down and smooth out basics -- and prove capable of revealing various facial pores and wrinkles, clothing lines and seams, and environmental odds and ends in the hospital and around town and, later in the movie's third act, in Venezuela, with satisfying, though hardly noteworthy, complexity. Colors are dreary and dull, partly a component of the movie's somewhat subdued and depressed visual structure; there's just not much punch, depth, and nuance at work in this one. Even in the aforementioned Venezuelan outdoors, where dense greens and blue skies prevail, there's precious little feel for intense tonal output, a shame given the rich landscapes the movies traverses. The image suffers from the odd spot and speckle, spiking in some scenes while leaving others entirely unmarred. Viewers might spot some trace edge enhancement examples but there are few other source or encode issues of note in play. This is a very midline presentation; adequate at best in most ways and not fatally flawed in any manner.

Dragonfly Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Much like the video presentation, the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is passable but no great shakes. The track struggles with prioritization early on when Joe speaks with Emily on the phone; the rainfall competes with the dialogue and works with the rather flat sonic signature to make the spoken word difficult to hear with total clarity. The track certainly isn't wanting for more raw engagement. Music in this scene plays with solid front end intensity and enough surround support and low end output to carry the material to broadly satisfying, though hardly rewarding, detail. Some of the higher output sonic moments are just flat. Take a scene in chapter nine, around the 85 minute mark, when music and rushing waters, predominantly, merge in a tense scene that offer ample output but absolutely no finesse. It's one of many in a string of generally disappointing, but crudely effective, listening elements. Dialogue at least holds center and there are some interesting natural ambient effects scattered throughout, including, again, in that third act in the Venezuelan brush.

Dragonfly Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Dragonfly contains several extras which must be accessed in-film via the pop-up menu. There is no top menu, and hitting the top menu button on the remote returns users to the player's home screen. No DVD or digital copies are included. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

• Deleted Scenes (1080p upscaled, window box, 11:42 total runtime): Several unmarked scenes in horrific video quality. Someone adjust the tracking on the VHS player STAT!
• Spotlight on Location (1080i upscaled, 4x3 and window box, 13:11): A vintage piece that looks at the plot, themes, technical details, crafting particular scenes, and more.
• Best-Selling Author Betty Eadie on Her Near Death Experience (1080p upscaled, 4x3, 6:20): What the authored experienced when hemorrhaging during surgery.
• Audio Commentary: Director Tom Shadyac breaks down the film in impressive detail, including story, themes, careful edits and alterations, the film's tone (including an admission that he wishes it had more humor), performances, and much more.

Dragonfly Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dragonfly recycles stale content and struggles to find viability or build any feel for care or concern for its characters. It's clumsily paced, performances give no real effort, and the story isn't of much value. It's a so-so movie at best and it's fitting its Blu-ray is equally so-so. Obviously sourced form a DVD era master and lacking a finessed soundtrack, the A/V presentation is nothing at all special. The extra also carryover from that timeframe, and the deleted scenes are in such poor shape as to border on unwatchable. Skip it.