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Stuart Little 2

Stuart Little 2 on DVD

That lovable little rodent is back, thanks to the success of his first highly entertaining outing - and this is a good thing because, unlike many (if not most) sequels, this one's a fitting companion piece to "Stuart Little."

Based on the story by E. B. White of Charlotte's Web (and Stuart Little, of course) fame, this sequel continues the fantasy story of the little orphan mouse who was adopted by the Little family and lives with them as a full family member, even though (or possibly because) it requires special attention from all involved. But what the heck, they're a family and they love each other and take care of each other and that's all that matters.

So Stuart Little 2 sees the fuzzy critter living peacefully with the Littles, sharing a room with his brother George (Jonathan Lipnicki). Mr and Mrs Little (Hugh Laurie and Geena Davis) still have a wonderfully happy marriage, almost a storybook relationship, though mom - as moms are wont - worries when little Stuart plays soccer or gets involved in any type of activity where his size could endanger him.

Stuart's family life is great but, not too surprisingly considering his rodent heritage, he doesn't have a lot of friends, and as George's circle of friends expands he starts feeling quite left out.

Then fate steps in. On his way home from school one day, Stuart meets an injured bird named Margalo (Melanie Griffith). Not only is she hurt, but she's being chased by a huge and nasty falcon (voiced by James Woods) - so Stuart rises to the occasion and takes her home to nurse her back to health.

Unfortunately, there's more to Margalo than meets the eye; she's actually in cahoots with Falcon, and used Stuart to wriggle herself into the Little family so she could steal from them - Falcon's Artful Dodger, if you please. So Margalo steals Mrs. Little's prized ring and disappears.

Stuart believes the best in people, of course and takes off to find Margalo, figuring she's in danger from Falcon. This leads to an exciting chase/rescue mission that makes great use of the computer generated effects that make Stuart Little possible (or at least convincing) in the first place.

Fans of the original Stuart Little will probably love "2" as well. It's more of the same, only with a bigger budget and therefore more of those wonderfully realized special effects. The sequel also focuses on the same pro-family message of the first film, which is always nice in this day and age.

Stuart Little 2 isn't really groundbreaking, but that's okay. It's a sequel, after all; the ground was broken in the original. But families will love both Stuart Little movies and you can't argue with that!

And after months of whining about the way studios are splitting their widescreen and Pan&Scan versions into different boxes, forcing consumers to choose one aspect ratio over the other, we must give Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment full marks for doing it exactly right with Stuart Little 2. They've included both versions of this 78 minute movie on one side of a single disc, with a menu choice when you first fire up the disc that lets you play whichever version you like. And the widescreen version is anamorphic, so it's completely compatible with (and will completely fill the screen of) 16x9 TV's.

And that's the way it should be, because this way people who don't yet understand those black bars (or who can't stand them) can have their Pan&Scan version without having to throw it away when they convert to widescreen TV's - which they inevitably will.

Congrats to Columbia Tristar - we hope this is a return to their earlier glory days of leading the aspect ratio way, and we hope other studios will follow suit. Storage space on discs and movie lengths being what they are, we don't expect all movies to have both versions on one side of the disc, but we do expect both versions in the same box.

The picture quality is very good, with a very sharp and crisp image that offers rich and vibrant colors. The audio is Dolby Digital 5.1 and the quality is also first rate, with plenty of surround opportunities that are well used for the most part.

There's also a pretty decent selection of extras, including an interesting and entertaining running commentary by director Rob Minkoff and effects supervisor Jerome Chen. They give some pretty good info on the filmmaking process, generally and specifically. You also get a “Show and Tell” feature that takes you behind-the-scenes during the playback of the movie: periodically, an icon appears onscreen and you can click on it to be whisked to a "making-of" featurette.

There's also a “Touch of Evil” featurette which has nothing to do with the Orson Welles film of the same name. Rather, it looks at how they created the movie’s extremely convincing villain, Falcon. There's also “Life in the Fast Lane,” which looks at the filmmaking process - but in about two minutes, so there's little detail; probably meant for the short attention span crowd...

Finally, you also get the usual trailers and filmographies, along with games and music videos.

Stuart Little 2, from Columbia Tristar Home Video
78 min anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), 16x9 TV compatible/Pan&Scan (not 16x9 TV compatible) - sold under single cover, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio
Starring Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie, Jonathan Lipnicki, and the voices of Michael J. Fox, Nathan Lane, Melanie Griffith, James Woods,
Produced by Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick
Written by Bruce Joel Rubin, Directed by Rob Minkoff

 

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Updated May 13, 2006