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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 22.86%
Worth A Look: 8.57%
Average: 22.86%
Pretty Bad: 25.71%
Total Crap: 20%
5 reviews, 40 user ratings
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| Kate and Leopold |
by Stephen Groenewegen
"Bad timing"
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Kate and Leopold is a soggy and soulless time-travel romance. It has the depth and sincerity of a Hallmark card.Stuart (Liev Schrieber) is an inventor who travels to 1876 New York through a “crack in the fabric of time” (yes, really). He arrives at the construction site of the Brooklyn Bridge, in time to hear the chief engineer declare it his “greatest erection” (chortle, chortle). Stuart’s miniature camera and carelessly anachronistic clothing catch the eye of Leopold (Hugh Jackman), the third Duke of Albany. Leopold follows Stuart back to modern New York where he meets and falls in love with Stuart’s ex-girlfriend, Kate (Meg Ryan), who conveniently lives downstairs.
Leopold is a fantasy hero straight out of a romance novel. A man’s man who commandeers a horse to thwart a Central Park mugging, Leopold is also sensitive enough to prepare an intimate candlelit dinner for Kate. Jackman cuts a dashing figure, and contributes a solid performance in an uncomplicated role.
Ryan personifies the film’s anti-feminist sting. Her Kate is cranky and petulant and focused on her career in market research to the point of obsession. Her priorities are so muddled she can’t even cook a meal, so it’s no surprise that she cries helplessly when Leopold prepares breakfast for her. A small dose of Victorian chivalry is enough for Kate to contemplate abandoning her career and independence altogether. Ryan’s daffiness and abrasiveness make for a charmless heroine. By contrast, Breckin Meyer brings a winning goofiness to the film as Kate’s brother.
James Mangold’s direction fails to make even remotely funny or plausible an episode where Stuart is rushed to hospital after an accident and mistakenly transferred to the psychiatric ward. I think this sequence is supposed to be comedic, but the tone is off, and I sat there cringing in horror instead. Nor does the script, by Mangold (Girl, Interrupted) and Steven Rogers (Hope Floats, Stepmom), convincingly explain the time travel elements of the story. We’re expected to believe that Stuart finds a portal through time to 1876 (and back) after studying theories of weather prediction.
The script is riddled with sloppy historical errors. We’re told that Leopold eventually invents the elevator, no doubt inspired by his trip to the future. It’s even implied that the elevator trademark “Otis” derives from his butler’s name. Never mind that Elisha G Otis was an American inventor who patented a version of the elevator in 1861, 15 years earlier. Or that the real Duke of Albany that inspired the title character, Leopold George Duncan Albert Wettin, was only 23 in 1876 (the producers must have worried this was too young for Ryan, who’s 40). And La Boheme, of which Leopold has an intimate knowledge, premiered in 1896 - a full 20 years in his future. I accept this is a romantic fairytale, but how seriously can we take a film that preaches a return to sincerity and integrity but is so contemptuous of historical accuracy?Kate and Leopold is completely lacking in wit, logic, surprise or truth. Don’t be fooled by its references to Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s a vain attempt at quality-by-association. The filmmakers should be sued for misleading conduct.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=5680&reviewer=104
originally posted: 03/13/02 08:05:44
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USA
25-Dec-2001 (PG-13)
UK
N/A
Australia
14-Mar-2002
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