A fascinating article surfaced on the Internet the day before I went to see this film. Basically, it identified the mysterious phenomenon among Internet daters of falling in love with people they had never met. Apparently, men and women across the country are dissolving established relationships after exchanging a few e-mails with people outside of their ZIP code and concluding that their soul mate is in fact some unseen other. Would anybody be surprised to learn that these meetings then turn out to have surprises?

These same morons are going to love "The Lake House," which has fellow Chicagoans Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves) and Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock) falling in love with each other across time. See, they're connected through a lake house where Alex lives in 2004 and Kate moves out of in 2006. There's a magical mailbox there and the two soon discover that they're able to communicate with each other by shoving letters in the mailbox.

Time travel movies are inevitably full of big holes and "The Lake House" is certainly no exception. The first flaw is that Keanu Reeves is in it. Reeves is the acting version of Pinocchio. He's a wooden boy who dreams of being a human actor.

The second, and most obvious flaw, is a shot early in the movie that I won't ruin for anyone although I would really like to. Basically, if you're paying any attention at all, the shot is completely superfluous to everything that's going on at the time it's shown UNLESS it has something to do with the end of the film. And indeed, if this supposition is made, one knows exactly how the film will end. In other words, I could have left ten minutes into the film and still have written this review. In retrospect, I probably should have.

However, I realize that particular criticism isn't tangible, so I ask this: Why doesn't Kate look Alex up the second she becomes intrigued? All she has to do is whip out the Chicago phone book and find Alex and they can hump to their hearts' content. As for Alex, he should know what every hands-across-time communicator should know: If you want somebody to prove that they're from the future, get stock tips. Who needs love when you can get Google at its IPO price?

I will say this for Alex: He's definitely a guy. He hunts down Kate during 2004 to make sure she's hot. That's what guys do. Imagine if Kate looked like Courtney Love after a bender. Movie over.

You'll drown in the sickly sweet romance of "The Lake House."