Stuart Little 2 [DVD] [2002]

Product Information

I liked this better than the original, and that''s a high compliment because I thought highly of the original film: Stuart Little. As good as that was, I just thought this was even better. Picture Technically this disc is as good as you'd typically expect from Columbia TriStar. The picture quality is good, with the fairytale styled take on New York transferring to screen with warm glowing tones that offer plenty of detail.

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. After the Littles are gone, Margalo is talking with her dad who is a peregrine falcon named Falcon (voiced by James Woods) who forces her to case and steal from households. When he presses her to find and take an object of value or lose the sanctuary he promised her, she can't seem to concentrate on her assignment because she's starting to fall in love with Stuart. Falcon eventually loses patience and threatens to have Stuart for lunch if she doesn't deliver. Worried for his safety, she takes the diamond ring of Mrs. Little ( Geena Davis). When the Littles see that the ring's missing, they think it fell down the sink. Stuart offers to be lowered down the drain on a string to get it, and he almost succeeds.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. Show and Tell Select this option and whenever an icon appears on screen during the movie you can access a selection of short featurettes (average two minutes in length) on the making of the film. The CGI and other visual effects are explored, as well as the art direction which drew inspiration from the 40s editions of New Yorker magazine and, bizarrely, the Al Pacino cop thriller "Serpico". PlayStation Demo There's an advert around every corner on this DVD and this time it's for the PlayStation game.

Audio Commentary Director Rob Minkoff is joined by senior visual effects supervisor Jerome Chen for a somewhat dry chat about the movie. The focus is highly technical and, while Minkoff provided an interesting commentary for the DVD of the first film, this effort is very limited in appeal. Kids will be bored by it and only those interested in animation and special effects may glean something from a movie that Minkoff describes as having "every shot manipulated". Stuart Little's Big Adventure The movie is condensed into a three-minute read-along adventure which ends with a charming fable about how you can buy more Stuart Little adventures. In the final shot of the movie, as the Little family leave the rooftop, Eleanor is holding out her hand as though she is carrying Stuart, but he is not there.A Touch of Evil The introduction of the scary Falcon to Stuart's world is covered in this seven-minute featurette. James Woods pops-up for a short interview and, as always, has slightly different coloured hair than the last time you saw him. He enjoys playing bad guys in animated films and reveals his formula for being scary, without being too scary, where kids are concerned. Stuart Little 2 was even more well-received than the first film. Rotten Tomatoes has reported that 84% of critics gave the film a positive review.