The Lake House (PG) <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Twelve years ago they co-starred in one of the best action movies of the decade; now Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves have got together again, but their reunion is in no way up to Speed. It's a crybaby romance in the coy, non-contact manner of Sleepless in Seattle, with Bullock as a Chicago doctor who has let her beloved lakeside house and Reeves as a troubled architect who rents it and starts forwarding her mail. The catch is that our star-crossed pair have found a kink in the space-time continuum, so he's corresponding from 2004 while she's hearing from him in 2006. Huh?

Apparently it's based on a South Korean film, Il Mare, and also nods to Jane Austen's Persuasion, though in the fixation with second chances and time travel it's squarely within the Hollywood tradition. Reeves is amiable as ever in his woodenly inexpressive way, and Bullock plays along adequately, but the feyness of the enterprise and Rachel Portman's maddening score grate on the nerves. You'd have to really hate football to seek refuge in this particular house.