If you noticed that I have been giving quite a few movies positive reviews lately, you would be right. This has been a really good summer for film, with something at the box office for just about everyone. Add Stuart Little 2 to the ever-expanding list of must-see flicks, especially if you have children.
The original Stuart Little in 1999 was a movie that just got me. However, it almost got past me! It was one of the few really big and really successful movies (it made over $140 million in the U.S., nearly $300 million worldwide) that I didn't see in either the theaters or on home video/DVD. The marketing made it seem like just another kid's flick with limited appeal, and I had never really been a fan of the E.B. White story on which it was based.
Boy, was I wrong!
It was a rainy afternoon last summer when I was flipping around cable, and it was playing on one of the pay channels. I'm one of those people who will only watch a movie I haven't seen on TV if I can catch it right from the beginning, and it was just starting. I had several friends, most of them with kids, who had urged me to check it out if I ever got the chance. For some reason, I always resisted. But I had a couple of hours to kill, and there it was. So, I watched. And I watched. And I loved it! It was the perfect rainy-day movie, something to lift my spirits and brighten my day.
Most of all, I loved Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox), the intrepid talking mouse adopted by a human family, the Littles (mom and dad Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie, and 9-year-old Jonathan Lipnicki). The film centered on Stuart fitting in, finding his way, and being part of a family for the first time in his life. Of course, it was also about Stuart trying to avoid being eaten by Snowbell the house cat (voiced hilariously by Nathan Lane) and his shifty feline friends from the neighborhood.
I fell in love mostly with the look of the film. It was shot in present-day New York (well, present-day as in the late 1990s ...there is a stunning shot of Stuart looking at the twin towers of the World Trade Center in the first film that could make you weep), and the movie gave the Big Apple a storybook grandeur. Most memorable was the remote-control model boat race in the Central Park pond, a race that Stuart took upon himself to win for his adopted "brother," George (Lipnicki). The sequence was pure magic.
Amazingly, so is the new sequel, Stuart Little 2. I won't even call it a sequel. This movie is an equal. It has equal charm, equal laughs, equal thrills, and equal appeal. I think it's the best family film of the summer.
The movie opens with Stuart still trying to fit in with a society that is blissfully oblivious to the absurdity of a talking mouse who drives to school each day in a tiny convertible. Stuart needs a friend his own size, and one literally drops out of the sky one day. She is Margalo (voice of Melanie Griffith), a homeless chick (I mean that literally ... she is a tiny yellow bird) suffering from an injured wing.
Margalo had been fleeing the evil Falcon (voice of James Woods), whose one passion is stealing expensive jewelry and other items from the humans. She and Stuart hit it off immediately, and the Littles welcome Margalo into the family. What they don't know is that she is secretly casing the house for Falcon, putting Mom Little's treasured diamond ring (and Stuart's heart) at risk. Margalo doesn't want to steal the ring, but Falcon threatens to eat Stuart if she doesn't comply. The rest of the movie is a parable about the bonds of family and friendship, as the Littles' eternal optimism that "every cloud has a silver lining" is put to the test.
To say that Stuart Little 2 is a touchy-feely movie would be a serious understatement. The movie is touchy, it's feely, it's grabby, it's holdy, and it's don't-let-goey! The Littles can make the Bradys look like the Osbournes with their morals and their Hallmark-card togetherness, but there is just something undeniably warm and appealing and even comforting about being in their house and part of their surrogate family while watching the goings-on from the audience.
The special effects and visual animation by Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. is just amazing or whatever adjective of amazing you can think up. Stuart's fur flows in the breeze as he drives his car and flies his toy biplane. Margalo, while a bit less convincing, is also a delight to watch. And Falcon is just an impressive CGI creation, expressive and intense.
All the CGI in the world would be meaningless if the story didn't have heart, and Stuart Little 2 has more heart than an army of Tin Woodsmen could ever need. But more than that, it makes New York once again look like a magical and innocent place to be. This is the first movie that I know of that has a long, extended shot of Lower Manhattan without the twin towers visible in the skyline. And, remarkably, it's not sad. Director Rob Minkoff lingers on the skyline. He puts his opening credits over it. He shows us that this is the city as it is now. It's still there, still great, still beautiful.
Don't wait for the video or cable.
The MPAA reports that Stuart Little 2 is rated PG for brief mild language, although I don't really remember any bad words
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