THE LAKE HOUSE (WIDESCREEN EDITION) (2006)

The Lake House (Widescreen Edition) (2006)
 

Actors: Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Christopher Plummer, Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Directors: Alejandro Agresti
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
Number of discs: 1

DVD Features:

• Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Additional scenes and outtakes
• Theatrical trailer

Movie:
Disc:

Most time travel stories - even in the hands of the best writers - are riddled with plot paradoxes and logic problems.

Lake House is alas no exception.

It boasts an original concept though: upon moving into a new house a frustrated architect (Keanu Reeves) receives a letter from a lonely doctor (Sandra Bullock) in his mailbox that is somehow from two years into the future.

This leads to a correspondence in which the two fall in love without ever having met, a bit like those women who write to prison inmates. However, when Reeves fails to make a real appointment with Bullock, it becomes apparent that something bad may have happened to him and that Bullock's character might be able to save his life . . .

The biggest problem with Lake House is that despite its rather unique premise (come on, how many time-traveling postbox movies do you know of?) the viewer can safely predict within the first fifteen minutes or so how it is going to end, even though as the movie drags on it becomes apparent it has a huge gaping plot hole that simply sinks the entire thing (hint: it involves Sandra Bullock's character not being too particularly good with faces and not even recognizing her one true love even while battling to save his life).

Actually there are loads of smaller plot issues as well, but the biggest problem is that the film is simply too slow and that both Reeves and Bullock give almost somnambulant performances. Forget the far-fetched premise - the biggest mystery is why, if you can communicate with someone from the future, you never ask that person for winning lotto numbers?!

THE DISCS: Not much in the line of extras: some deleted scenes, one gag reel and the theatrical trailer. An audio commentary would have been nice, especially one in which the writers discuss the film's internal logic and time travel plot pratfalls. Some info on the house ? made of glass supported on stilts on a lake ? would have been nice. Is it a prop? Real? Who lives there? When was it designed? And so forth.

WORTH IT? Perhaps a rental if your girlfriend feels like a love story and everything good is out.