Stuart Little is the smallest member of the Little family... literally. In fact, he's a mouse. But in the fairytale world of Stuart Little 2, Stuart is completely accepted as their son, complete with going to school, eating breakfast with the family, and even playing in the little kids' soccer league with his human brother George. Of course, being only about six inches tall, Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) ends up being excluded from many of the activities that human kids his own age enjoy. Saddened by George's sudden enthusiasm for playing with the neighbor instead of him, Stuart longs for a friend of his own.

In addition to its title character and his family, Stuart Little 2 takes several elements directly from the original novel by E.B. White: the cat Snowbell, the songbird Margalo (Melanie Griffith), and several minor incidents such as his adventure in the kitchen drain pipe, landing in the garbage barge, and having a tiny toy car to drive. These elements are woven together into an entirely different story, however, with Margalo a much more important character with a past history that ends up drawing Stuart into a life-threatening adventure.

From the very beginning, Stuart Little 2 creates a stylized, fairy-tale world in which everything is slightly larger than life. The Littles' home is gaudily decorated with bright, sunny colors, visually representative of the sunny personalities of Mom (Geena Davis) and Dad (Hugh Laurie), who are just enough over the top as parents to be funny but not so much as to be overdone. Anyone who has had an overprotective parent will find the ring of truth in Mom's panicky but well-intentioned smothering of Stuart, and Dad steps in as the "perfect husband and father" who backs up Mom when it counts but is willing to let Stuart let go of Mom's apron strings. The whole loving picture-book family could have been sickeningly sweet, except that they're rendered with an affectionate humor that recognizes that this is indeed a storybook world.

Normally I tend to be in favor of film adaptations following their source materials closely, but in the case of Stuart Little 2 I can see that the loose nature of the adaptation makes for a much better film than a straight book-to-film script could have. The novel Stuart Little is an odd and in some ways rather unsatisfying story, reading like a miscellaneous collection of adventures about Stuart but with a very open (and in my opinion, unsatisfying) ending tacked on. The film Stuart Little 2 takes some of the interesting story elements from the book and makes them into a much tighter overall narrative.

Visually, Stuart Little 2 is extremely polished. Stuart himself is an amazing piece of CGI animation, with his fur absolutely realistic to the point that I just wanted to reach out and pet him on his cute little soft head, and his facial expressions modeled exquisitely, giving him an excellent range of emotions. Margalo and especially Falcon are also modeled extremely well: Margalo is slightly more "cartoonish" in her features (necessary, I think, in order to give a bird face enough range of emotion) but Falcon is eerily realistic. For the live-action cats, I was impressed with the smooth integration of their performances into the movie; it can't have been easy to get the necessary behavior onto film. The mouth movements are evidently rendered by the use of CGI, and are well-done, giving them convincing speech without overdoing it.

The story itself is quite entertaining, with enough creative elements to keep adult viewers enjoying it just as much as the younger set, or maybe more, as I think adults will be the ones to enjoy Snowbell's commentary to the fullest. The characters genuinely come to life, from Stuart himself to Margalo, Falcon, Snowbell, and Snowbell's alley-cat pal, and I found myself feeling a part of their adventure as the film unfolded. There are even a few moments in the climactic scenes that are truly tense or poignant, more so than I might have expected. While Stuart Little 2 doesn't rank quite as high as some of my favorites such as Toy Story or A Bug's Life, it's still an all-around fun movie, and I'd put it easily on a par with an animated feature like Antz.

Oddly, Stuart Little 2 is rated PG. If Stuart Little 2 gets a PG, then I'd like to know what the heck can get a G rating any more; are movie studios afraid that viewers will think "G is a baby movie" and skip it? The ratings label says that the PG rating is for "brief mild language" (well, of course it has "language," since the characters talk) but the only thing that could vaguely be represented as offensive is that Snowbell says the word "poop" at one point. Hm, that's not exactly up there in my list of bad words... On a more realistic note, it's possible that small  children might find some of the sequences with Falcon to be scary, but apart from that, Stuart Little 2 is about as family-friendly as you can get.

The DVD

Video

Stuart Little 2 is presented in a very attractive widescreen anamorphic transfer, preserving its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio as shown in theaters. There's also a pan-and-scan version sharing the disc with the widescreen version, but at least the menu option for selecting widescreen vs. "full frame" shows an actual screenshot from each version, illustrating how much the image has been chopped to get the 1.33:1 ratio. Given the lousy track record of some studios with "family" pictures, Columbia Pictures should be commended here for giving us Stuart Little 2 in its original aspect ratio.

The color palette for Stuart Little 2 is highly stylized, using every color in the rainbow at some point; perhaps the only colors that aren't used much are brown, gray, and black. The colors are bright, sunny, and vivid, and come across in the transfer cleanly and crisply. On the few occasions where the scene is dark, contrast is excellent, with blacks looking nicely dark but with detail and shading still preserved. The one flaw is the presence of a moderate amount of edge enhancement, but it's not all that noticeable in this film, and all in all Stuart Little 2 looks excellent.

Audio

The worst thing about the soundtrack of Stuart Little 2 is the sappy pop songs that are inserted into the movie. Thanks, but I prefer my kids' movies without the insipid songs.

Apart from that, Stuart Little 2 sounds very good, with the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack offering a clear, clean listening experience. The surround isn't used aggressively, but I did notice that the side channels are put to work effectively on several occasions for special effects, such as Stuart's plane flying through the house. All in all, the sound is full and pleasant to listen to.

A French Dolby 5.1 track is also available, along with English and French subtitles.

Extras

Stuart Little 2 is labeled as a "special edition," and in fact it backs up that assertion with a generous assortment of special features. Adult viewers will find the commentary track (with director Rob Minkoff and visual effects supervisor Jerome Chen) to be the most notable feature, with the featurettes ranking a close second. We get several short but interesting featurettes that detail various elements of the making of the film: "A Touch of Evil" looks at designing the character of Falcon, while "Life in the Fast Lane" offers a speedy glimpse of the various tasks necessary to create the CGI characters as well as other elements of the film. There's also a "Show and Tell" option to view featurettes during the course of the movie by clicking on icons that appear; this is annoying as I'd rather view the featurettes directly from the special features menu.

There's also a miscellaneous selection of lesser bonus material. "Stuart Little's Big Adventures Read-Along" (and the option to record your own read-along) and the "Interactive Game: Stuart's Circle of Friends" are only going to be of interest to the younger viewers. Playstation 2 owners will be interested in the promotional material for the Stuart Little 2 game; incidentally, the graphics for the game look pretty terrible. There's also a music video for one of the insipid songs from the film, Celine Dion's "I'm Alive," trailers, and weblinks.

Final thoughts

Independently of whether you've seen Stuart Little 1 (in fact, I haven't seen it), Stuart Little 2 is a very entertaining family film on its own merits. With an imaginative story drawing on elements from E.B. White's children's novel, well-done visuals, and an excellent transfer onto DVD, Stuart Little 2 is highly recommended both for families with kids and adults like me who simply enjoy a light-hearted and charming film.