Movie Review Kate and Leopold

Kate & Leopold 

Directed by James Mangold 

Written by James Mangold, Steven Rogers

Starring Hugh Jackman, Meg Ryan, Liev Schreiber, Breckin Meyer, Natasha Lyonne, Bradley Whitford

Release Date December 25th, 2001 

Published January 24th, 2002 

There has been talk that romantic comedy is a dying genre. The plots and conventions of the genre have become too familiar and many filmgoers are growing more pessimistic about on-screen romance. Kate & Leopold may not be the film to breathe new life into this struggling genre but for what it is, a light little cookie of a film, it's not bad.

You know your watching a romantic comedy when Meg Ryan comes on screen wrinkling her cute button nose that screams, “Love me.” In this film she is the titular Kate, who is more concerned about getting ahead at her job in advertising than finding a meaningful relationship. Her last relationship was with a quirky scientist played by Liev Schreiber. Schreiber is trying to solve the puzzle of time travel so that he can travel through time to meet his great-great uncle Leopold (Hugh Jackman), an inventor who may hold the key to Liev's scientific writer’s block.

After accomplishing time travel he accidentally brings Leopold back to the future with him. From there Kate meets Leopold who she assumes is some method actor. Leopold is immediately drawn to Kate but she at first just thinks he's weird. There is something odd about him, he's chivalrous and well mannered and well spoken. Very unusual for the modern male, but then as we already know he's not modern at all.

The love story develops well and director James Mangold doesn't let the film’s gimmicky premise get in the way of Ryan and Jackman's wonderful chemistry. All great romantic comedies are based on the chemistry of the lead actors, as Ryan has shown with Tom Hanks and Billy Crystal previously.

In Kate & Leopold, Jackman shows himself a worthy replacement for Hanks. Jackman's best work is in his willingness to humiliate himself while holding on to his Victorian era dignity. Jackman becomes a star right in front of our eyes, breaking out of the action genre and proving he can do just about anything as an actor, as he would later demonstrate in a brilliant hosting gig on SNL.

Ryan is her natural cute self in Kate & Leopold, which isn't a bad thing. But there are moments where you can see she is beginning to tire of this kind of role. More than a couple times she looks outright bored by material that she has done more than a few times. Jackman and the very surprising comic turn by Schreiber save the film. He steals every scene he's in with a goofy energy we haven't seen from him before.

Kate & Leopold isn't anything you haven't seen before but as a Friday night rental to relax and watch with your girlfriend, it’s an enjoyable rent that will leave you smiling.

Movie Review Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) 

Directed by Mark Waters 

Written by Jon Lucas, Scott Moore 

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Breckin Meyer, Lacey Chabert, Robert Forster, Emma Stone 

Release Date May 1st, 2009 

Published April 30th, 2009 

In this day and age of mass media marketing it is almost impossible for even the most objective of critics to not form some opinion of a movie before having seen it. Featurettes, commercials, and film trailers and posters are splattered over every inch of the internet and TV. Movie Stars appear on TV talk shows with clips and follow that with a podcast and an audio trailer.

Thus, I was exposed to the terrifically awful trailer for the Matthew McConaughey movie Ghosts of Girlfriends past more than 6 months ago and the stream of promotion has been unfailingly ever present  ever since. The subsequent clips, commercials and trailers have been as bad or worse than that first trailer and I must be honest and admit that I was bracing for a disaster when I finally saw the movie.

These many promotions for the film offer a seriously dopey series of rom-com clichés pitched to the plot of Dickens' A Christmas Carol and a super generic pop soundtrack. Matthew McConaughey's recent track record of bad movie after bad movie does the film's reputation no favors either. So, imagine my surprise when first I chuckled and then laughed out loud and was eventually kind of taken in by this admittedly cheesy but undeniably compelling romantic comedy. Don't get me wrong, this is not a really good movie but it succeeds for not being nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Connor Mead (McConaughey) is a world famous photographer whose string of sexual encounters would cause Wilt Chamberlain to advise a nap. Having lost his parents when he was just 7 years old, Connor and his younger brother Paul (Breckin Meyer) were raised by their playboy uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas). It was Uncle Wayne who taught Connor to treat women as he does and it will be Uncle Wayne who will teach him the error of his ways.

Conor is attending Paul's wedding to Sandra (Lacey Chabert) where he encounters the one girl who really ever got to him, Jenny (Jennifer Garner). The encounter sends Connor on a bit of a binge and soon he is seeing ghosts. First, it's the ghost of his late Uncle who lays out the plot: Connor will be visited by three other ghosts, each representing the women who Connor's womanizing ways have victimized.

Say, doesn't that three ghosts thing sound familiar? Of course it does, it's Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Instead of the miserly money grubbing Scrooge we have the sex addicted misogynist Connor. In place of his late partner Marley and his rattling chains we have Connor's mentor Uncle Wayne with his glass of whiskey with ice clinking in the glass. The copied plot offers the opportunity for the film to be lazy and at times it is, especially when establishing a timeline for Connor's life. However, thanks to the committed and forthright performance of McConaughey, a lot of the film's troubles go by the wayside.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a little coy about exploring what a bastard Connor truly is, the best and lamest example has him breaking up with three girls at once over a conference call while his next conquest watches from his bed. The scene is played for awkward laughs rather than an ominous sign of Connor's troubled soul and the conflict fails to develop. Much of the first act struggles this way but once Emma Stone arrives as the first of three ghosts and Connor is forced to see the wreckage of his life things take a surprisingly compelling turn. Also helping things along is the chemistry between McConaughey and Garner as the one woman who ever to called Connor on his garbage.

Romantic comedy convention will require Connor to be reformed and for he and Jenny to fall in love. What director Mark Waters does well is keep the typical roadblocks thrown in front of them believable enough to distract from the inevitability. Then it becomes the job of the actors to make us want to see them together and McConaughey and Garner pull that off splendidly. Garner's Jenny is just the kind of girl to make a bad dog go good and McConaughey's believable turn from scumbag to reformed good guy is shockingly plausible.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a highly flawed film but, by the standard of your average romantic comedy, it's not that bad. Low expectations based on the awful marketing campaign have certainly helped me to this relatively positive conclusion, but nevertheless, I can't pretend I didn't enjoy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. 

Movie Review Garfield

Garfield (2004) 

Directed by Peter Hewitt 

Written by Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow

Starring Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Bill Murray, Stephen Tobolowsky 

Release Date June 11th, 2004

Published June 10th, 2004 

As a kid, I was a huge fan of Garfield the comic strip. I had all the books, made up of all of the Newspaper strips, I had the Garfield videos that aired on each holiday and I was a regular Saturday morning viewer of Garfield and Friends. However, when I heard that Garfield was coming to the big screen I was not excited. Especially since the film would not be animated but live action with Garfield rendered in CGI. Throw in Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt and director Peter Hewitt and I was even less excited.

Then they cast Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield and somehow this mess of an idea became mildly tolerable as a concept. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the comic strip, Garfield is a fat, lazy, lasagna loving, orange cat. He loves to eat, sleep and watch TV and occasionally revel in the constant humiliation of his owner John, played here by Breckin Meyer. The plot of the film has Garfield's comfy life turned upside down by the arrival of Odie, a lost puppy that was a gift from Garfield's attractive veterinarian, Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt).

With Odie getting all of John's attention, Garfield hatches a plan to get rid of him. His plan works but when Garfield sees how sad John is at losing Odie, he decides to get Odie back. That's not as easy as it sounds because Odie has been picked up by a conniving kid’s show host named Happy Chapman (Stephen Tobolowsky) who wants to make Odie part of his act and take the act to New York. It's up to Garfield to stop him before Odie is taken away forever.

The plot of Garfield the movie is dull, as are the human characters. What's not dull is Bill Murray whose constant riffing and laconic delivery are what I've always imagined Garfield would sound like. Garfield's lines in this script are as tepid as anything the human characters have to deliver but when Murray seems to go off the script the movie gets pretty funny. Maybe I'm biased by how much I like the character and how much I like Bill Murray, but I found myself willing to tolerate most of the banal plot of Garfield because I liked Bill Murray's performance as Garfield.

The CGI Garfield is not the best special effect. He does not seamlessly integrate into the background and his unreality is exacerbated by not having human characters interesting enough to distract from the effects. Nothing against Breckin Meyer or Jennifer Love Hewitt, who are both likable actors in the right roles. However, when the material is bad they can do little to improve it, unlike more experienced and talented actors like Murray who can make bad material better than it should be.

See Garfield only if you are a huge fan of Bill Murray and his unique brand of personality and humor.