Do you believe a prince kissing a princess will bring her back to life?
Do you believe in white horses growing wings and flying? Do you believe
in people turning into stars after dying? Do you believe in Lucifer,
Hell and Heaven? How about the super-natural? Do you believe in love?

It being Valentine's Day weekend 3 romantic movies and "RoboCop" opened
up. Being a romantic I picked "Winter's Tale" and I am still not sure
what I saw! Winter's Tale opens on a confusing note spending time in
2014 and 1914 but quickly turns into an early 20th century love story
between an orphan, Peter Lake (played by Colin Farrell, and an heiress
Beverly Penn (played by Jessica Brown Findlay) who has consumption.
Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe), who brought up Peter, taught him how to
be a master thief with a natural penchant for fixing anything
mechanical, including opening safes and they have a falling out. Along
with being an Irish mob leader, it is the early 1900s in New York City,
Pearly is also one of Lucifer's (Will Smith!)workers and he is out to
end Peter's life.

Without giving away any spoilers we are suddenly in 2014 with Peter not
having aged a day since we last saw him but with amnesia. He meets
Virginia Gamely (Jennifer Connelly) a newspaper reporter and her young
daughter Abby (Ripley Sobo) who is dying of cancer. Pearly, also
ageless, is also in New York to get Peter.

The biggest surprise in the movie is the appearance of Eva Marie Saint
as Willa, Beverly's younger sister, at her real age of 90. It has been
60 years since she won her Oscar for On The Waterfront and, yes, she has
aged, but watching a movie like this you can see the young Edie Doyle
of that movie. William hurt as Issac Penn the father of Beverly and
Willa does what he can with what little he is given to work with. Almost
unrecognizable is Matt Bomer in a cameo.

Colin Farrell, with his caterpillar eyebrows and puppy eyes, plays the
lover role well as does Jessica Brown Findlay as the ethereal Beverly.
Russell Crowe, a lot thinner than he has been in the past few years,
plays Pearly as the gangster of the century sometimes going a little
overboard with the accent.

New York, especially Central Park in both centuries, is shown as the vibrant city it is known as the world over.

Director and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman doesn't quite capture the
novel, by Mark Helprin, that the picture is based on but there are quite
a few breath taking shots throughout the movie, including the flying
horse.

The love story is touching but the rest of the movie brought laughs at
the wrong places and snorts at some of the explanations. And what was
the cause of the scar on Pearly Soames?

"Winter's Tale" is good when it concentrates in the first hour on the
love story and with Eva Marie Saint's appearance almost saving the last
hour of supernatural happenings.