Kate & Leopold

UK Release: 5th April 2002

Watched on DVD: Sunday 23rd December 2012

Rating: 12

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance

Runtime: 1hr 58mins

Tagline: If they lived in the same century they'd be perfect for each other.

IMDb Plot Synopsis: Kate and her actor brother live in N.Y. in the 21st Century. Her ex-boyfriend, Stuart, lives above her apartment. Stuart finds a space near the Brooklyn Bridge where there is a gap in time. He goes back to the 19th Century and takes pictures of the place. Leopold -- a man living in the 1870s -- is puzzled by Stuart's tiny camera, follows him back through the gap, and they both ended up in the present day. Leopold is clueless about his new surroundings. He gets help and insight from Charlie who thinks that Leopold is an actor who is always in character. Leopold is a highly intelligent man and tries his best to learn and even improve the modern conveniences that he encounters.

My Review: I first saw Kate & Leopold many, many years ago on TV one night and thought it was magical. It was everything my little time-travel loving brain could have imagined in a rom-com and ever since I’ve wondered if the film could possibly live up to my memory of it that cold winter night. 

So after purchasing it for an extraordinarily cheap price I decided to give my childhood memory another go. 

I was instantly surprised to see Hugh Jackman as the lead! He has changed so much and I can’t believe that he’s the same person that I thought was a handsome duke, all those years ago. He is so hilarious in this - something I’ve never really seen in him before. In fact the whole film is hilarious still with Meg Ryan, the hardened modern woman, bouncing off Jackman effortlessly.

It also looks and feels as magical as I remember it with old New York all dirty and yet glamourous and new New York wonderfully contrasting and modern. And with that wonderful traditional soundtrack making it seem like a modern fairytale! It’s so hard to find a really great time travel movie but this really has everything I could have dreamed of as a kid and lives up to that impossible memory somehow. They don’t make them like they used to! I’d definitely urge you to give it a go - I can’t imagine a better way to escape for a Sunday afternoon!

Score: 8.5/10