Product: Stuart Little (1999)
Rating: 5.0
A well written movie with a well designed DVD
I think the best part about Stuart Little is not the talented actors, or the dazzling CGI and visual effects. It's the screenplay. When I first heard M. Night Shyamalan, the genius behind 1999's smash hit wonder "The Sixth Sense", cowrote this movie, my jaw hit the floor in disbelief. I saw the movie to check it out, and boy, was I impressed! Hard-core Sixth Sense fans can immediately tell when M. Night Shyamalan sprinkled his fairy dust in this movie, including the realism behind the Little family, Stuart's heartwarming speech at the orphanage, the emotional confession by the Stouts to Stuart that they were threatened into posing as his parents, and the segment immediately following, when Stuart proclaims to the city of Brooklyn that he is Stuart Little. Also, he lend a hand in determining the setting of this movie, which is Brooklyn, because there's something about M. Night Shyamalan that influences him to pick big city locations for his movies (ex. "The Sixth Sense" took place in Philadelphia), and the emotional sequences, like at the moment when the entire Little clan is searching for Stuart, when at the same time Stuart comes back to his real home: the Littles' home, but only comes home to Snowbell, who tells a blatant lie that the Littles were glad he left, and he helped with the ending alley cat sequences that were literally the entire reason this movie was rated PG. Through the movie, you scratch your chin wondering why this movie was rated PG. When these sequences begin near the end, it all becomes clear to you. During these sequences, there are 3 instances of foul language spouted by the very unflattering alley cats, and also there are rude and/or offensive comments by them as well, and through it all, there is suspense a little too great for kids, making the whole ordeal a little thematic for kids. Yet through it all, Stuart still has the fairy-tale like urge to say "Oh, dear...", and when the moment of the movie is out of M. Night Shyamalan's hands, it's good, clean family entertainment brought to you by Greg Brooker. And by the way, this movie isn't terribly along the lines of E.B. White, but it's still a good movie.Now how `bout that DVD? If you want it, make your pick: widescreen DVD or fullscreen DVD. They both have the same outstanding array of features made easy by Stuart, and they both have the same price, but I do wish both versions could have been put on ONE disc to make it simpler, because Columbia-Tristar Home Video already proved that possible with the DVD release of "Blue Streak". But, still, the features are impressive, and include a fun game about the movie which you don't need a DVD-ROM drive for, you can play it right on your player with your navigation buttons and your "enter" button. And the disc also has all 3 music videos of the main songs from the soundtrack, commentary by the director, animation supervisor, and visual effects supervisor, a Music-only track, CGI animation samples from effects animators trying out to work on the movie, deleted scenes with optional director commentary, trailers from several Columbia and Tristar movies for kids, including Muppets From Space, Baby Genuises, The Adventures Of Elmo in Grouchland, and, of course, Stuart Little, and many other films as well. AND (I never thought I'd have to say that about a DVD) the original concept reel of the Boat Race constructed of storyboards with commentary by the director, and talent files. And finally, it has an extended blooper reel that is FAR more pleasing than the one included on the VHS tape, and even a visual effects blooper reel, proving that visual effects animators are not just computer-jargin-spouting workacholics, with animated bloopers including a very brief one involving Snowball insisting he's "not strange", then his eyes and tongue bug out in a cartoony way, and a blooper from the scene where Mr. Stout pinches his wife.So if you like a good movie based on a good book, see Stuart Little.