Bullock, Reeves bore in shallow movie

"The Lake House" attempts to be romantic. Its lame attempt is as feeble as the concept and rules it creates surrounding time travel. Yes, theories about time travel have their inherent paradoxes, and they can often be overlooked for the sake of a movie's theme and plot, but "The Lake House" is so unnecessarily convoluted and silly that it becomes a distraction.\n"Lake House" opens with a tragic accident in Chicago, which lays bare an impending plot twist without too much audience effort. A lonely doctor named Kate (Sandra Bullock) witnesses this accident, and after taking some advice from a friend, decides she needs some time off, and returns to the lake house her ex-boyfriend bought for them two years ago. She leaves a letter in the mailbox for the new tenant, telling him about paw prints by the front door that need to be painted over. However, the person who receives her mail through the same mailbox doesn't see any paw prints, and this is because he's living in 2004, exactly two years in the past. His name is Alex (Keanu Reeves), and his renowned architect father built the house when he was a young boy. Thus we learn about the significance behind the lake house, and how the lake house's mailbox is a flux capacitor.\nKate and Alex then quickly begin to form a romantic relationship through the letters they exchange by means of the lake house mailbox. Alex hesitates to look for Kate in his time because she wouldn't know who he was and because she would, at that time, be in a relationship. However, he does find her, and they share an intimate encounter although he keeps her future a secret. Now, the easy thing would've been for Alex to mention the encounter to the future Kate, so she'd remember and look for him, but he doesn't. In fact, the characters could've done a hundred different things to make the most of their magic mailbox, but I suppose they didn't want to be too hasty, even though they quickly became involved with each other, and their letter exchanges resembled the pace and informality of an Internet chat room. It would all make your head spin, were it not so easily dismissed.\nFollowing several ups and downs, Alex and Kate's relationship comes full circle at the end of the film, and Kate finds herself at a race against time to save the relationship she has with Alex. Unfortunately, the predictability of the ending made it lack intensity, and in the tradition of mainstream Hollywood cinema, it took no risks. There was no passion in any of the film at all, really, opting instead on catching Kate sulking while Alex fails to plan his actions with any thought or care.\n"The Lake House" is a remake of a Korean film named "Il Mare" which, like most remakes, is probably much better than its American successor. It also adopts themes about waiting and patience from the novel "Persuasion" by Jane Austen. The DVD doesn't have many extras except a theatrical trailer and some outtakes and deleted scenes. I'd skip on this one and rent the Korean version instead. Perhaps "The Lake House" would have worked better if it were a romantic comedy directed by the Farrelly Brothers, but that's not saying much.