Reeves and Bullock had good chemistry in Speed, and that more than anything made me go. Of course the premise was interesting as well.

The plot is classic; it is all about two lonely people desperately trying to connect in a world that they cannot control, and there are external forces that are keeping them apart. You cannot get a more angst ridden, oft-used love-story than that. But the twist here is that Kate is in 2006 while Alex is in 2004 - and the only thing that connects them is the post box at the said Lake House.

I got to say upfront that, if the possibility of time-travel/connection bothers you , don’t see this movie because it will continue to bug you as you go deeper into the movie, not that they make a big deal out of it. My suggestion is just to go with the flow, accept that reality, then you will enjoy the movie.

Loneliness as a theme runs throughout the movie. The two key locations, the Lake House and Chicago are beautiful in their own way, yet lonely places. Both Kate and Alex form relationship with their colleagues, boyfriends, brothers, fathers yet they are all somewhat distant, never really connecting.

But somehow, as Alex asks early on in the movie “Could this be happening?,” they manage to get in touch with each other through the post box at the Lake House and somehow they connect. They start exchanging mail about what their favorite thing to do to the sharing of their daily routines - a dialog of sort forms through time.

Through coincidence they somehow manage to meet, Kate not knowing who Alex was, while Alex, who knew who he was talking to, couldn’t bring himself to tell her of their future connection. “Coward,” she called him as they have their first fight, and in trying to make amends, Alex asks her to meet her at a place. A date. Tomorrow for Kate, two years in the future for Alex.

So Kate goes and waits, and waits and waits, yet Alex never really shows up, and since we are going into spoiler territory I will stop here.

While both have aged somewhat since we last saw them together, both Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock play their roles well, Christopher Plummer makes an appearance as Reeves estranged father. The dialog, is also just right - never really over or under.

It is a still movie, things move slow, but the plot engages straight from the beginning. But slow is fine here because you know that you have entered a magical realm of sorts and you don’t want the magic to end. In other ways it is quite a suspenseful movie because you want these two lonely characters to come together, to meet, to connect with each other.

Then ultimately you want to know if they will somehow manage to be together; which brings me to the ending. I guess that it has to end somehow, but I felt that they took the easy way out of the whole thing. The impact could have been greater if they had ended it the other way. But then that is just me.

Other than the quibble I have with the way this beautiful movie ended, I have to say that I enjoyed the movie. It is not necessarily a date movie, but for those who have lived on their own for some time, the movie will resonate.

There are movies that should be made, and then there are movies that shouldn’t. I went to see the latest Owen Wilson fare with little to no expectations, and came back pleasantly surprised - not much, but it was enjoyable.

Now if you have seen most of Owen Wilson’s other movies, he plays the “lovable f@#k up,” that he has played in so many other of his movies, so nothing really new there. As much as I liked it earlier in his career in Shanghai Noon to Wedding Crashers it is getting old by now.

It is obvious that he can play other type of characters like he did in Behind Enemy Lines. I mean the writers must have had him in mind when they had him say that he was a “lovable f@#k up,” during one of the emotional scenes. Admittedly they needed such a character and they found the perfect fit in Wilson. While he was doing the same old thing here, there were some genuinely funny moments in You, me and Dupree.

The plot revolves around how such a lovable f@#k up crashes the newly wed life of Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson with hilarious results, then things go downhill, tears are shed, hurtful words are said, and an un-necessary chase ensues, and the marriage nearly breaks up. But in the end, Dupree manages to fix it all - and finds his calling in life. I doubt that I am giving too much away of this formulaic plot.

Having just said that there are some quite humorous lines and scenes in the movie - especially when Dupree had just moves in. Then there is a pretty funny discussion between Michael Douglas who plays the father-in-law and Matt Dillion about hyphenating Dillion’s character’s name, or the one with the vasectomy. And I found myself laughing out loud along with the rest of the audience in the theater in such scenes. And yes, there was an un-necessary scene with Hudson in heels and a bikini and Lance Armstrong (don’t ask)..

Matt Dillion played the emotionally repressed Carl who is losing his “Carlness.” Not a great performance, but it works. Kate Hudson plays the smart school teacher who works with inner city kids - come on!! can’t there be other nice professions that a women can have in these romantic comedy movies?

But the most notable performance came from Michael Douglas who plays Carl’s pushy father-in-law, who thinks Carl is a wuss; only because he was just reading his lines here. While I am a fan of Douglas, he was bought in for no other purpose than his star-power.

Don’t expect intricate plot lines, don’t expect great character development, but expect to see some genuinely funny moments, competent actors playing shallow characters and a movie that just allows you to tune off the world for about 90 minutes, then you got your movie right here.

There are movies that should be made, and then there are movies that shouldn’t. This movie falls somewhere in-between - if they didn’t make it, no one would have missed, but now that they have - give it a try, you just might come back, unexpectedly entertained.

 I never really watched Miami Vice on TV, heard a lot about it, but was busy watching other shows, so this is where my review is coming from.

Why they wanted to call this movie Miami Vice is beyond me, it could have easily been called Another Kick Ass Movie From Michael Man and I would have been perfectly happy with it. Make no mistake, this is Michael Man through and through, and it is all good.

If Collateral appealed to you in any shape or form, then you will like this. It has shades of Collateral throughout the movie, especially with it’s grainy, monocromatic look and feel. Unfortunately it is missing Collateral’s dramatic tension - where you are really rooting for the Tom Cruise character, but feel that you shouldn’t. That kept that movie going.

Miami Vice on the other hand almost plays out like a TV show where the cop goes undercover, falls for the wrong women and at the end .. I will not spoil it, but if you are familiar with the undercover cop formula, then you can guess how it ended.

But then that is not why we go and see Michael Man’s movies, is it? We go there for the cool action scenes, the shoot-outs look realistically nasty and noisy, we go there for the perfectly framed shots - Sonny in the background, on a speedboat, hair streaming, Rico, in the foreground looking worried, another scene - close up of Jamie Foxx’s face as he is caught in a standoff where his girlfriend is being held, a panoramic shot of the Miami skyline at dusk. Visually it is as distinctive as Collateral was, although the tone and manner is not as consistent.

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx do their thing and they do it well. They are believable as Crockett and Tubbs, but the only problem I had was how their characters were too similar. Both can be bad asses when they want to be, and be Mr. Sensitive the next, but there was noting that really differentiated the Crokett and Tubbs characters..not in a tangible way that is.

Gong Li, despite her previous work was spectacularly, unspectacular. Perhaps because she was playing against Farrell, or perhaps the way her character was written. She does add some color, so to speak, but that was all she did. And somehow the chemistry was missing between the her character and Crockett despite the screen time.

Another quibble; somehow the bad guys don’t seem that bad, perhaps they were a bit too understated!! SO yes, there are things that bother me, but overall I enjoyed it.

Ultimately is it worth seeing? Fans of Collateral should not miss it, fans of good action movies should not miss it either. Let me put it this way, of all the summer’s movies, this is the one with the attitude, and for that it is worth seeing.

If you liked the first one, then you should see it. If you enjoyed the character of Jack Sparrow – excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow, then it is a must.

In some ways this is “just” another pirate movie – with buried treasure, dastardly pirates, ship-to-ship battles, mysterious strangers and spectacular swordfights. But this movie is so much more because of the different but really cool characters that inhibit the movie.

There are some returning characters and we find out so much more about them in this movie. They are as compelling – which makes us want to see the third movie, simply because we want to know more about them, what happens to them.

Captain Jack Sparrow : Depp does it again and this time it’s better. Because this time he gets to expend his character – he is still the quirky character from the first one, but you now see some dept to him. In the first one we always get the impression that he can be a “good man” but in this movie we see more evidence of that. But I do have to say that making “Jack” into a “good man,” might not be a good idea. We loved him in the first movie because he was such a scoundrel. Besides, in this one, we get to see some really evil characters and I am not referring to Davy Jones either. Either way Depp delivers and we look forward to having his character on the screen.

Elizabeth Swann : What can I say about Knightley that hasn’t been said before. She gets don breeches and gets to kick some dead-pirate butt. While I wish there was more, in a movie filled with interesting characters, she got some good screen time and mostly at the right moments.

Will Turner : Bloom also does his character well, but he is overshadowed by the other characters, especially the other male leads. But we learn some interesting things about him also and can look forward to whether he gets to keep his promises that he made in this movie.

Davy Jones & His Crew : The effects are well done and Jones and his crew are totally believable. If you think that the “Black Pearl” was cool the “Flying Dutchman,” is awesome.

There are other returning characters – some expected, and well loved, others unexpected and still well loved. The actions scenes are also well done and can be quite amusing. But you have to see them for yourself.

The movie, obviously sets it self up for the next movie and it does have a cliff hanger. We do want to know what happens next, but that is will not be the only reason that will bring us back to the cinema when the third movie comes out. Kinda like “I am your Father,” type of cliff hanger, we want to know if it is true, but we also want to know what happens to Han, Leia, etc..

Pirates is a very different type of movie from Superman Returns, but it gives you plenty of action, laughs and interesting characters to keep you amused for the rest of summer.