Product: Stuart Little (1999)
Rating: 2.0
Good points, bad points, pointy points
There are good things about the movie, there are bad things about the movie. The four-year-old reviewer didn't like it because, and I quote, "the cats were mean." They were also funny, and the feline antics in this movie were one of its high points. The kid who played George was top-nitch, as well, even if the script he had to work with was a little thin (movies where one cast member's feelings about another go from hate to love in one scene drive me bats, and it happens here twice). Having never read E. B. White's book, I've no idea whether any of this at all was faithful to that, but if so, I need to go back and look at E. B. White with a far more critical eye; I think he's a better writer than this, though. Blame the adaptation.And the mouse? The animation was good. Could have been better, but then I saw this five days after seeing Toy Story 2, and anyone's animation would pale in comparison to the wonders being churned out twice yearly by Pixar. So I can't really fault them for not spending the extra twenty million or so to come up with the world's best animation.Now for the humans. First off, no one will be giving makeup Oscars to the person who worked on Geena Davis; had someone hit her with a ruler during the making of this film, it would have sunk in at least to the 6. She moves very slowly throughout the movie, no doubt because she's wearing at least fifty pounds of pancake makeup. The other main human character is Hugh Laurie; I've never been a Fry and Laurie fan, but I must admit he's an engaging sort. Almost as good as the kid.And then come the cameos. There were so many stars in this movie with less than a minute of screen time I had flashbacks to The Thin Red Line. The always-underrated Kimmy Robertson shows up for a single line; Dabney Coleman gets about fifteen seconds. And so on, and so on. Even Chazz Palminteri (as the voice of the main alley cat) gets more screen time, and he never shows up bodily. Sheesh. (Palminteri, by the way, is a riot.) Even Estelle Getty, who's a many-times-proven comic genius, gets one line. The rest of her screen time is great because she plays a deadpan role better than any other seventy-odd-year-old lady in movies today, but it's still a waste of awe-inspiring talent.So what do we have? A cute story that could have been scripted better; an excellent cast that could have been used better; and a bunch of really, really good animals. You make the call. If you take into account the fact that I got free parking out of it, I paid $1.25, which is about right.