Stuart Little Review
by "Steve Rhodes" (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)December 17th, 1999
STUART LITTLE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Once upon a time, good, old-fashioned kids' movies were released regularly to the theaters. But these days, Hollywood has increasingly given up on their theatrical releases in favor of the cheaper direct-to-video route. Columbia Pictures, bucking the trend with their good-spirited and unabashedly wholesome STUART LITTLE, offers something that the whole family can love.
Many of the kids' movies that are released theatrically feature nothing but walking product placements as in POKEMON: THE FIRST MOVIE. The live-action STUART LITTLE, starring a digitally created mouse, is so sweet that it should appeal to everyone but card-carrying members of the Bah Humbug set.
As the simple story opens, Mr. and Mrs. Little (Hugh Laurie and Geena Davis) are off to an orphanage to adopt a sibling for their small son George (Jonathan Lipnicki from JERRY MAGUIRE). They end up choosing, not a human child, but a mouse one, Stuart.
"We try to discourage people from adopting outside their own (pause) species," the prim and proper director of the orphanage, the ironically named Mrs. Keeper (Julia Sweeney), tells the Littles. "It rarely works out." The picture has several really cute lines like these, which unfortunately, are almost all shown in the trailers.
The beauty of the film's approach is that all of the characters try hard to ignore the fact that Stuart is (whisper this part) a mouse. Stuart is treated as much a part of the family as George, their human offspring. Thanks to the special effects artists, Stuart is far cuter than any real mouse imaginable. The film's many real cats, with their artificially moving mouths, are not nearly as successfully rendered, and they are 99% real.
Michael J. Fox voices Stuart with wonderfully sweet innocence and spunk. The rest of the voice casting is well chosen, especially Nathan Lane (Timon from THE LION KING) as Snowbell, the Little's sassy cat. Poor Snowbell gets ridiculed by his buddies, who say that Stuart is "a mouse with a pet cat."
Filmed by Guillermo Navarro in the brightly saturated colors of an old 1950's movie and filled with warmly nostalgic music, the film is a treat for the eyes and ears. The Littles live in an inviting old New York City brownstone, set right on Central Park and between two skyscrapers -- talk about expensive real estate.
The movie is loaded with handsome visuals of Stuart: cuddled up snug in his human-sized bed, being partially swallowed by Snowbell, living temporarily in a castle turret in an abandoned miniature golf course and being chased in a scary, nighttime Central Park.
The delightful movie is directed by Rob Minkoff (THE LION KING) and written by Gregory J. Brooker and M. Night Shyamalan (THE SIXTH SENSE). One might say the script was based on the classic E. B. White books, but that would be stretching the truth. As my son and I discussed in the car afterwards, the movie has the characters but little more. Don't take this as necessarily negative. My son said he thought the story was much better than the book. I would not go that far.
References to other movies are featured prominently in the storyline. As in ANNIE, some obviously fake, working-class parents show up to claim Stuart. And, as in LADY AND THE TRAMP, there are pampered indoor animals that interact with battle-hardened outdoor ones. The film's best sequence is a takeoff on the chariot race from BEN HUR with Stuart piloting a small sailboat in the big Central Park race as an evil, rich kid uses his remote control to have his boat destroy the competition by ramming them.
Sad, poignant and funny, the movie makes you care about the brave, little rodent with human clothes. Well, actually doll clothes.
STUART LITTLE runs a fast 1:25. It is rated PG for brief language (a single use of the word "damn" I think) and would be fine for all ages. The only possible reservation is that the dark chase scenes in the park might briefly scare those under 5.
My son Jeffrey, age 10, absolutely adored the movie, giving it an enthusiastic ****. He said it was "such a sweet, lovable story" and that "it really kept you into it."
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