Review: YOU'VE GOT MAIL

YOU’VE GOT A GOOD MOVIE

(reviewed on ppv)
 
 If you’ve seen one romantic comedy, you’ve seen ‘em all. Guy and girl don’t mix. Either she likes him or he likes her but one half isn’t buying it. By the end it’s all happy and they’re together. I’ve seen it a million times. Right now “Notting Hill” is in theaters. Later “Runaway Bride” plays out the same cliché.
    But for my money, Nora Ephron, Tom Hanks, and Meg Ryan really have the formula down pat. The trio teamed for the entertaining “Sleepless in Seattle”, and now they’re all back in the more or less re-make of that film then of the original “Shop Around the Corner”, which is the basis of “You’ve Got Mail”.
    Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are e-mail pals. They met in a chat room on America Online one night and have been exchanging and eagerly awaiting each others letters daily. They don’t divulge any personal information, just that they both live in New York City. Hanks plays the son of a big corporate big wig who owns Fox Books, a mega book store which has just been put in across the street from Ryan’s small children’s book store which will probably fold.
    These two people meet and hate each other all the while they are oblivious to the fact that on the computer they are kindred spirits.
    The original book and film dealt with two people writing letters to each other. The e-mail update brings a few laughs, but without Hanks and Ryan the movie would fall flat like Meg Ryan’s last disaster which I will never see in my life, “Addicted to Love.”
    Tom Hanks is better here than he was in “Saving Private Ryan”. I can’t picture TOM HANKS as a leader in WWII. I can picture him here. He’s really funny here, his chemistry with Meg Ryan is top-notch. The scenes when both are trying to seemingly outwit each other is especially humorous.
    Of course they fall in love…do I have to even fucking tell you?
    But thank the lord they don’t fall in love too soon because I really didn’t feel like sitting through them dating and boring shit like that.
    “You’ve Got Mail” is simple, sweet, and what Hollywood should be proud of, even though you’ve seen this before…one billion times. **1/2