Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2001

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When Breckin Meyer is the most animated part of your movie, you have Issues, dude. THE STORY (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**) Let's see if I can get through this without snickering... Stuart (Liev Schrieber) is an inventor with no visible means of gainful employment (though he lives in an apartment in New York) and a lot of free time on his hands, some of which he used to discover a magical time portal through which he travelled back to the 1800s to discover Leopold (Hugh Jackman), bored and disillusioned Duke Of Albany. Leopold notices Stuart noticing him a lot, and in chasing Stuart to see what he's up to, Leopold accidently follows Stuart back into the portal, landing in modern-day New York. Stuart's bitter ex-girlfriend, Power Marketer Kate (Meg Ryan), heard all the ruckus he and Leopold made in Stuart's apartment (conveniently just a fire escape away from her own), and goes to investigate. Kate, of course, doesn't believe Stuart's story that Leopold is a 19th century Duke, though her actor-brother Charlie (Breckin Meyer) takes to Leo right away. A small amount of Leo floundering outside his natural habitat passes, Stuart gets into this freak accident, and Leo and Kate fall in love, sometime after I started snoring. THE UPSHOT Point blank, there's not much in Kate & Leopold to rush out and see right away. Its pseudo-science was completely laughable. Nah, don't tell me about "suspension of disbelief"; last time I saw mine, it was floating off somewhere near Schenectady. Really, now; just re-read "The Story" above, and tell me if you lasted through that premise without rolling your eyes at least once. Really? Hmm. Well, I couldn't; not before I went to see the movie, and certainly not after. "If the premise wasn't All That," I hear you saying, "then were the actors worth watching, at least?". Well, I wouldn't go out of my way to be the first in line here, but they were fine enough, I suppose. Hugh Jackman seems to have settled right into a romantic comedy groove, though I don't see him as the Sexual Vanilla that he's made out to be. Problem is, Leopold's near-instant acclimation into 21st century life, was so incredibly unbelievable that it negated any chance of that character working for me at all. Liev Schrieber may as well have been a ghost for as much as his character was used (or useful). Bradley Whitford plays Yet Another Cad, though a much less effective one than his usual Cad characters of past movies. Natasha Lyonne as Kate's secretary, Darci, was interesting, in a budding dominatrix kinda way. And Meg Ryan was...well, Meg Ryan. Too bad writer/director James Mangold seemed perfectly willing to accept the same ol' same ol' from her. But stealing the show from them all was Breckin Meyer, who I found extremely enchanting in his quirky ways. If I were in charge of this production, I would've made Meyer the Mad Scientist brother, melded the Stuart and J.J. roles into one ex-boyfriend/current boss character, and dropped Liev Schrieber altogether. Too many characters, doing too little that mattered, placed Kate & Leopold firmly into the "ok...whatever" category for me. Oh, and could somebody please tell me whathell that kid Hector was all about? THE "BLACK FACTOR"    [ObDisclaimer: We Are Not A Monolith] Of all things that irked me about Kate & Leopold, what pissed me off most was the implication by its filmmakers that Leopold's manservant, Otis (Philip Bosco), was who Leopold, Inventor Of The Elevator, named "his" invention after. History may not have been my favorite subject in grade school, but I definitely remember studying something about a Black man having invented the elevator. I walked away from the movie full of Righteous Indignation, thinking I was about to Right A Wrong. Boy, was I wrong - as a quick query of "inventor of the elevator" on askjeeves.com and google.com, showed me (check it out for yourself at http://inventors.about.com/, amongst many, many others). I suppose I'll be dogged out by some of My People for even mentioning this; it's hard enough to get some folks to admit that there's more to Black People and Our history in America, than slavery. But wrong is wrong; and if "Leopold"'s version of history must be debunked, then so too must the myth of Alexander Miles' supposed invention. It's easy enough to tell it true: Miles patented the elevator (though I've yet to find out much more on the web than that simple factoid; I'd be glad to hear what real historians have to say about it); but to attribute more to him by saying he was the inventor of the elevator, does a great disservice to truth. We can't have it both ways: if Black History Month is all about telling Our truth, We have to tell the whole truth. And teaching Black kids that Alexander Miles "invented the elevator", just ain't the whole truth, ruth. Update: Okolo, a listmate from a Black email list I'm on, did fill in the blanks about Miles somewhat, rendering my cautionary words about false history, somewhat false in practice (but I still hold by them in theory): "This invention closed the shaft, which elevators travel up and down in, above and below the elevator. This prevented it from moving while loading and unloading passengers on the floors." Improved Invention by Alexander Miles October 11, 1867 Patent Number: 371,207 (Source: http://www.therighttrack.com/inventions.html) Thanks again, O. BAMMER'S BOTTOM LINE Kate & Leopold was harmless enough, I suppose; and I shouldn't be surprised that it wasn't noteworthy, seeing as the last flick Meg "second verse, same as the first" Ryan played something other than The Ditz in was Courage Under Fire (unless you count Proof Of Life. I don't). Still, I had hopes that this would be Different. Silly me. KATE & LEOPOLD: Its time-travel legs were weak, its love story not much better; Kate & Leopold barely stood a chance from jump. And don't make me get started on my feminazi rant on why the woman always has to Give It All Up For Luv... back to top And that's the way I see it. Rose "Bams" Cooper 3BlackChicks Review™ Copyright Rose Cooper, 2001 EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com    ICQ: 7760005 http://www.3blackchicks.com/