Rating: Summary: Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan are perfect together! Review: I have seen "Kate & Leopold" about a few days after the film came out, and I thought that it was a really sweet romantic comedy with a romantic twist! The stars of the film, Hugh Jackman ("Swordfish") and Meg Ryan ("Proof of Life") gave great and funny performances that make them the best on-screen couple since Ryan and Tom Hanks starred in "Joe Versus the Volcano", "Sleepless in Seattle", and "You've Got Mail"! I really liked Jackman the most in this film because I would like to think of "Kate & Leopold" as his follow-up film to 2001's "Someone Like You" with Ashley Judd. The direction of James Mangold ("Cop Land", "Girl, Interrupted") was brilliant in every way possible! The film starts off in the late 19th century version of New York. The year is 1876. It concerns Duke Leopold of Albany (Jackman) being accidentally swept away into the present-day New York one night. He takes one look at how the "new" New York is and he is quite shocked at what he is seeing. In other words, Leopold has to adjust ("blend in") with this new trend somehow. There he meets a hardworking Manhattan executive named Kate McKay (Ryan) who lives with her brother Charlie (Breckin Meyer, "Road Trip"). During the film, to me, it seems as though Leopold and Kate might not be the perfect couple, they might not see eye to eye, but when you get right down to it, they just might fall in love together! In closing, the performances by Jackman and Ryan were very sweet and very appealing as well. The other performances by Breckin Meyer, Natasha Lyonne ("American Pie 1 and 2"), and Liev Schreiber ("The Hurricane"), who plays Ryan's ex-boyfriend, were simply amazing and quite enjoyable! "Kate & Leopold" has got to be Hugh Jackman's best since "Someone Like You" and Meg Ryan's best since "Sleepless in Seattle"! It is so charming, so witty, and so downright funny that you would have to see "Kate & Leopold" again and again! A great DVD addition to any romantic comedy collection!
Rating: Summary: Kate & Leopold Review: Typical vehicle for Meg Ryan. A very cute and charming movie. Definitely what is termed a chic flick. I loved it....
Rating: Summary: Hugh Jackman is brillant, handsome & quite the gentleman!!! Review: We went last night to see Kate and Leopold. Our family enjoyed it, and quite frankly cannot understand why so many people have been negative with this movie. As my daughter was in line with her father to get popcorn, people were saying Do not go see it. We thoroughly enjoyed it and would say to go and have a nice time. There is almost no swearing, and thank God there is not the sexual stuff, that most of us parents have to view. This is a movie that parents and children can see together. A+ per my 9 year daughter, my 12 year old daughter said this is a family movie. *Hugh stole the show, Meg was just okay in this movie, her brother played by Breckin Meyer is funny and of course Liev Schreiber is always joy to watch. Thumbs UP!
Rating: Summary: Help to restore hope in romance Review: A great relationship with a friend is the way I date. Only a man with manners and character ( good character )will do. Leopold (the character) portrayed a man that genuinly likes and respects women, especially Kate when he found her. He was visibly intrigued and patiently waited for the chance to spend time with Kate. Very much the gentleman, Leopold continued throughout the movie to put Kate's needs and desires before his own, she in return did the same, with neither taking the other for granted. They were thrilled with each others company, not a lusty feeling instead LOVE the way my Mom always said it should be. It helped to restore my hope in romance the way it should be. Not at all hokey but instead long lasting, possibly until "death us do part" type of relationship, with love continuing to grow to the fullest possible extent, which many people over the centuries have struggled to fully explain.
Rating: Summary: Cute, Enjoyable and Fun! Review: This is not Meg Ryan's best film, but it is yet another highly enjoyable romantic comedy in the career of one of the most successful light comedy actresses of the past decade. But this could be a breakout film for Hugh Jackman, who is easily one of the most likable and charismatic new actors on the scene today. Easily the best thing about X-MEN was Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine. He has also appeared in SWORDFISH and SOMEONE LIKE YOU, but after seeing this film, he is clearly a very versatile and talented actor, who deserves a lot of chances in a lot of different kinds of films.The film is enhanced by an excellent supporting cast. Both Liev Schreiber as Meg Ryan's ex-boyfriend and Breckin Meyer as her brother are extremely appealing. But the film either falls or stands on the performances of Ryan and Jackman. This is not, as I mentioned earlier, her best role, but even Meg Ryan at less than her very best is still quite good, and Hugh Jackman is enormously enjoyable. Natasha Lyonne, who I love a lot, was pretty much wasted in her role as Ryan's secretary. The movie will invariably be compared to other time travel movies. It is a genre that has been more successful in the past than one might imagine, thanks to the BACK TO FUTURE series and the superb TIME AFTER TIME. There are a couple of gigantic holes in the plot (one involves when a particular photograph could have been taken), but overall the film isn't hard to take as sci-fi. I will say that the scenes set in 19th century New York are my favorite parts of the movie. The initial scene takes place at a ceremony in which Washington Roeblings, the engineer who built the Brooklyn Bridge and son of the man who designed it, is dedicating (I think) the completion of the second tower of the bridge. The look and feel is remarkable. Looking at the masts of the ships in the water, I kept thinking of Walt Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," which ferry the bridge superseded. Most of the imagery was surely computer generated, but the whole scene was nevertheless remarkable to look at. All in all, this movie was a lot of fun. It won't be the greatest movie you have ever seen, but it certainly won't be the worst, and I think the vast majority of viewers will be convinced that they will have had a lot of fun. And a message to Hollywood: get Hugh Jackman in more movies!
Rating: Summary: Hugh, take your shirt off! ;) Review: He turns a character that could have been an English fop flop into a chivalrous romantic lead. Whatever happened to the scene of Hugh in the bath tub, though? The scene made the trailers, but not the final cut. What a shame. I was beginning to thing it was a Hugh Jackman "thing" to give us a little pectoral peep in his films. Remember X-men, Swordfish, and Someone Like You? Heck, even Paperback Hero, I think. Oh well...maybe X-men 2 will make up for it. Oh, and the story was sweet. Hugh, take your shirt off! ;)
Rating: Summary: historical error Review: While I thought this movie was relatively amusing, I was disturbed by the fact that Leopold, transported through time from 1876, was involved in a discussion of La Boheme. This opera was not written by Puccini until 1896! Perhaps someone should have checked their history a bit more carefully.
Rating: Summary: A great Movie, suitable for all ages Review: I really enjoyed watching this movie. Hugh Jackman's character was believable, he really could have been from that century. The part of his character that I will remember the most is that he was honourable. It was very refreshing to see a movie not based around the bedroom but instead containing moral standards (which are severely lacking in this day and age in the movies.
Rating: Summary: Of Love and Time Travel Review: When Liev Schreiber as Meg Ryan's former boyfriend opens a time portal, a love match extending not just over the Atlantic Ocean but over the expanse of better than a century occurs. At the end of the picture Schreiber sees the full significance: "You'd better get over to England," he warns Ryan, "or I'm never going to be born." The critical need for Ryan to travel across the time expanse to nineteenth century England and reunite with the love of her life is that the Duke of Albany, played by dashing Hugh Jackman, is the genius inventor great-great grandfather of Schreiber, who realizes that the future will be disrupted if Ryan's love cannot find him a wife and put the discontented aristocrat on the track to establishing a family. When the story begins the Duke is on the verge of having his engagement announced to a young American woman from Schnectady, New York on the simple pretext that it is time for him to get married and this is an excellent economic match, a position taken frequently through history in monarchical and aristocratic circles. The Duke is bored by the whole thing, having concluded that he is not about to find love in the first place. Once that he is transported across the Atlantic to present day New York Jackman discovers love with Meg Ryan. Once that she gets over the initial culture shock of meeting a man from another era with a different social perspective Ryan becomes so impressed by Jackman that she displays her flattery in the area where her pocketbook resides, the career domain. Ryan, a female advertising executive, thinks Jackman conveys just the level of elan coupled with credibility to serve as an excellent advertising spokesperson. The only hitch, however, is that Jackman is indeed a man of credibility and sterling integrity. He balks over being expected to endorse a product in which he does not believe. His protest over the "follow the leader" symbolism of Madison Avenue advertising practices prompts Ryan to see her life and job in a new light. After Jackman has been transported back to England and is on the verge of agreeing to an engagement to the girl from Schenectady, and the surely loveless marriage that will result, Schreiber stresses the need for Ryan to be reunited with him. She makes her decision at the formal party thrown in her honor to announce her elevation to the vice-presidency of the advertising company where she works. She stuns those in attendance by respectfully declining the promotion offer, then rushes off. Ryan in the nick of time manages to jump from Brooklyn Bridge, at which point the time dimension catapults her to England and back to Jackman. The loveless marriage will not occur, the girl from Schenectady is destined to fade away, and love will reign between Ryan and Jackman, who will ultimately invent the elevator. This is a lighter, more comedic time travel romance as opposed to the more solemn 1980 love story drama superbly rendered in "Somewhere in Time" with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.
Rating: Summary: A fun sci-fi romance Review: "Kate and Leopold," directed by James Mangold, combines a time-travel plot device with a sweet comic romance. Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman play the title characters, a contemporary research and marketing executive and a 19th century nobleman. Although Ryan is effective, it's Jackman's performance that really carries the film. He is marvelously funny and charming in his "fish-out-of-water" role. Those who are fans of Jackman's moody, intense performance as Wolverine in "X-Men" will be in for a stunning surprise if they see him as this witty, cultured character. In addition to nice interplay with Ryan, Jackman also has a great "buddy" chemistry with Breckin Meyer in a supporting role. Liev Schreiber brings unexpected depth to his largely comic supporting role. His character's speech explaining a scientific epiphany is particularly good. "Kate and Leopold" is a pretty light film, but it's quite satisfying.
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