Kate and Leopold

A 19th-century British nobleman (Hugh Jackman) is unwittingly dragged into the year 2001 by his time-travel-inventor descendant (Liev Schreiber), where he meets and courts the inventor’s ex-girlfriend (Meg Ryan). Director James Mangold (Girl, Interrupted), who rewrote Steven Rogers’ original script, relies heavily on the charms of Jackman and Ryan—so heavily, in fact, that he doesn’t mind making Ryan look like a bedraggled mess, or making her character a strident, unpleasant harpy. If he’s going to be that careless, you can hardly expect him to write a script with any consistency, or to direct with the air of lighthearted whimsy the story requires. In fact, Mangold is so careless that, if you pay attention, you’ll notice him giving away the ending in the first five minutes.