Rated PG for some language and a disturbing image.
99 Minutes
Directed By: Alejandro Agresti
Written By: David Auburn
Staring: Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Christopher Plummer, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Willeke van Ammelrooy, and Dylan Walsh as Morgan
I sometimes feel as if I’m invisible, as if no one can see me at all. I never felt that way when I lived at the Lake House. -Kate
Review:
I know I’ve been trying to stick more or less with scary movies or Tim Burton flicks this month, and I picked this movie because in a certain way, The Lake House is sort of a horror movie. The kind of wave of horror you feel when it seems like you’ve lost time in your life that can never be gotten back. What is it with Bullock and Reeves movies and buses? No only are we over the buses, but I think most of us are also over Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. This unnecessary reuniting would have been much better without the Lake House, without the magic mailbox, and without cameras or a script. Gimmicky, contrived, and entirely typical there was essentially nothing redeeming about this boring love story involving a “conveniently” twisted time line.
It's a magic mailbox!
I can’t quite figure how a movie like this gets made. And who thought of Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves to carry it? A wilted drama? The last time they worked together was on Speed, and the only reason people enjoyed it was because there was a bomb on the bus, which meant that at any given moment the annoying whining of Bullock or the “dude” delivery of Reeves could be stunted by a giant explosion obliterating everything annoying about each of them. There was no such hope in this magic mailbox movie. The Lake House is actually a re-make of the Asian film Siworae written by Eun-Jeong Kim, which I’m now interested in seeing. If any time was taken to develop the idea, the characters, and given the story some depth instead of the translucent blanketing it was given, it may have had some success under more imaginative eyes and minds.
I can handle slow paced when there is some substance being served, but paper thin plot was coupled with a heartless script that relied on a gimmick to sell it’s love story is not going to sustain me. If there were no magic time line to this story what would have set it apart from a hundred different other love stories that have been forgotten over time? Absolutely nothing. The cold and detached personalities each of the characters had, and the incredibly boring “chemistry” that this letter writing supposedly had was without any saving graces. Even the cinematography was so dark and depressing it is a wonder to me that anyone made it through the movie without jumping off their roof or passing out from complete and utter boredom. There is no payoff with the ending and it doesn’t even give you any authenticity that I literally craved throughout. It will have you retching in it’s ludicrous conclusion and the cheese of it all is rampant with cliche.
The Lake House serves Tedium and Cliches on a silver platter here!
I simply wish I’d never been curious enough to waste time on this one. The fact that it continues to pollute Oxygen every weekend leaves me to believe it’s catching other helpless viewers in it’s web of mundane mediocrity. Very seldom do movies feel this mind numbing and lazy. Somehow having the name Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves on the billing attracted enough viewers to make this movie popular on cable. Washed up one note actors are not my idea of a win unless there is a bomb on the bus and Dennis Hopper is present. I strongly advise to avoid The Lake House at all costs.
Interesting how if you remember my review the things you hated about the film i merely brushed off as a minor annoyance. This is an example of how great and diverse movie critics (amateur ones at least, like us) can be. I’m glad you attempted to watch it with an open mind at the very least. I’m anticipating your tim burton reviews later on in the week
Half a star? I’m betting you’ve never attempted to watch The Star Wars Holiday Special.
Then again I’m a sucker for anything to do with time travel, and the thing I liked most about The Lake House was how it utilised the same three-timelines-masquerading-as-two time travel model as Frequency, though to less impressive effect. It’s not about the love story. It’s about the awesome time travel model and the mailbox that made it possible. srsly who doesn’t want one of those? It’s a mailbox that’s a portal into the space-time continuum. Right outside your house. dude.
Script writer David Auburn is a Pulitzer winner, and having read a 2003 draft of the script, I thought that it was better than the final film in some ways. It’s one of those things that work better in text than on screen. Plus he’s a Back to the Future fan, which is always good by me, though one of his BTTF references got cut from the film.
And the bus was in there way before Reeves and Bullock were casted (both of whom I like and in no way find annoying), so that’s not their fault… When it was brought up in an interview, they claimed that they hadn’t noticed the Speed connection.
And come on, that house was awesome.
To end off, I present you with these comic strips to either ease your pain or worsen it:
http://cowa-comic.livejournal.com/1521.html
http://cowa-comic.livejournal.com/5281.html
http://cowa-comic.livejournal.com/5484.html
- Anakin McFly
Keanu SWAT Team
Hahahahaha. Thanks Anakin.
I think I was just so annoyed by the movie because I felt like it had the potential to be something more. The concept of the mailbox was really innovative, and mixing the love story into it wasn’t a problem for me. One of my favorite science fiction films IS a love story that has very little obvious science and that’s Happy Accidents with Marisa Tomei and Vincent D’Onofrio.
The casting of Bullock and Reeves just felt like a cheap attempt to get viewers and a lot of the story felt that way as well. In the right role I really like Keanu, and sometimes I don’t even want to punch Bullock, but this was not the case. And the bus? Well now it’s just funny, coincidence or not.
However, you were off the mark on one point by a landslide. Star Wars is the closest thing I have to religion in my homestead.
The time travel aspects do add some curiosity but the sappy aspects are likely to leave the non-romance lovers among you luke warm at best
Your review was from the cynics point of view, stick to reviewing horror.