By LINDA HERRICK
(Herald rating: * * * )
Overlook the ludicrous time-travel plot and droopy performance by Meg Ryan, and Kate & Leopold is not quite as bad as it sounds.
For a start, director Mangold is a solid operator, having helmed darker forces in movies such as Girl, Interrupted and
Copland. Here, he proves he can rise above a potentially fatal central problem: the premise that we must accept our heroes - Kate (Ryan) and Leopold - can travel between the 19th and 21st centuries through a "portal in time" linked to the Brooklyn Bridge.
But the time-travel thing is not the big issue. What's really at stake is love, or the lack of it, as 19th-century toff Leopold faces a dire marriage because he's flat broke, and 21st-century marketing whiz Kate contemplates life post-breakup of yet another relationship. But she should be grateful to her ex, Stuart (Schreiber). He's an inventor who lives above her apartment block but somehow has whizzed back to 1876, hooked up (literally) with Leopold - also an inventor - and accidentally brought him back to New York City.
Which is where Leopold encounters the wonders of phones, toasters, television and so on, a point which is not too laboured by Mangold. More importantly Leopold finds modern manners appalling and that gentlemen have forgotten the art of wooing a lady.
Kate, naturally, is bowled over before you can say "chaperone", but blows it by recruiting Leo's services in a margarine ad, which is fine and dandy until he tastes the horrible stuff. And then the age gap between these two starts to matter ...
So why three stars? Some cynics have bemoaned the film's lack of credibility, wanting an "explanation" of the time-travel mechanics. Get over it, schmucks. Far less easy to explain is the charm of Golden Globe-nominated Jackman whose elegant persona - and riding boots - simply makes those who've gone before him (like Russell Crowe) seem like creatures from the swamp. Nonsense, yes, but it's charming "posh tosh" as well.
Cast: Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber Director: James Mangold
Rating: PG (coarse language)
Running time: 120 mins
Screening: Hoyts, Village, Berkeley cinemas