TYPECAST FROM HELL

A Video Review of "Kate and Leopold"

Copyright 2002 Glenn Walker

Yeah, it’s a chick movie, and yeah, it wants nothing more than to be half the success Somewhere in Time was, but to Hugh Jackman it was a way out. A way out of the typecasting hole, the one that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy and Adam West and Lynda Carter had all fallen into. Hugh Jackman doesn’t want to be Wolverine forever.

As the popular savage member of the motion picture X-Men Jackman has already been marked in the minds of millions of comics fanboys as Wolverine. This was his chance to show he had chops as an actor on his own.

First it should be noted, he’s tall as opposed to the illusion put forth by the X-Men movie and comics that Wolverine is only five foot tall. He also can act and is excellent playing off Meg Ryan as the romantic lead. He’s believable.

It’s a nice little romance about soulmates separated by the sands of time and Meg Ryan is equally believable. The problem arises in her typecasting however. In the end everyone in the movie and watching the movie knows the truth, she really doesn’t belong with Hugh Jackman after all, but Tom Hanks.

The horrible truth being Meg has also been typecast, as Meg Ryan.