Susan Granger’s review of “KATE & LEOPOLD” (Miramax Films)
It’s an amusing “Back to the Future” switch as Kate McKay (Meg Ryan), an assertive, ambitious 21st century market-research executive, meets Leopold (Hugh Jackman), the courtly Third Duke of Albany, who has been catapulted through an invisible time portal into modern-day Manhattan. This unexpected time-travel occurs after Kate’s maniacal former boy-friend and upstairs neighbor (Liev Shreiber) goes back to 1876 and is spotted as an interloper by Leopold, his great-great grandfather who invented the elevator, during the celebration of the erection of the Brooklyn Bridge. Although Kate and Leopold are separated by more than a hundred years, they share a common bond: they have never fallen in love and are jaded about the possibility of that ever happening. Given this contrived, occasionally inconsistent, fish-out-of-water fantasy set-up from writer/director James Mangold (“Girl, Interrupted,” “Copland”) and co-writer Steven Rogers, their emotional entanglement is inevitable but it’s the charm with which it’s executed that makes the journey worthwhile. Hugh Jackman (“Swordfish,””X-Men”) is irresistible as a rugged English nobleman in his aristocratic Victorian attire. Despite unattractive costumes and hair-style, perky Meg Ryan exudes her usual breezy charm, fending off her caddish boss (Bradley Whitford) and placating her hapless brother (Breckin Meyer). And an inside glimpse reveals Mangold in a bit part at a test screening, criticizing test-marketing for “sucking the life out of American cinema.” But the bottom line is that chivalry is not dead. Indeed, it triumphs in this romantic comedy. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Kate & Leopold” is an intriguing, engaging 7 – and, face it, how long has it been since you’ve left the theater with a smile on your face?
