Stuart Little (DVD)

I went to see Stuart Little with my partner and my then three and a half year old daughter at a matinee performance at our “local” Showcase cinema - half an hour’s drive away, and on a huge retail park. It was the first film we have taken our daughter to, and I hoped that it would be a really special film. The best thing about the whole morning was the absence of any other people in the cinema. We felt like millionaires for the day. Unfortunately ...
...FILM

Stuart Little the movie is the tale of a mouse-boy, adopted by human parents, and adapted from the book of the same name, published in 1945 and written by E B White, author of children’s classics such as Charlotte’s Web.

Stuart Little and his family live in a house squashed in between two huge sky scrapers in the heart of New York, just over the road from Central Park, where much of the later part of the film ... more

I went to see Stuart Little with my partner and my then three and a half year old daughter at a matinee performance at our “local” Showcase cinema - half an hour’s drive away, and on a huge retail park. It was the first film we have taken our daughter to, and I hoped that it would be a really special film. The best thing about the whole morning was the absence of any other people in the cinema. We felt like millionaires for the day. Unfortunately millionaires have to sit through bad films just like everyone else.

THE FILM

Stuart Little the movie is the tale of a mouse-boy, adopted by human parents, and adapted from the book of the same name, published in 1945 and written by E B White, author of children’s classics such as Charlotte’s Web.

Stuart Little and his family live in a house squashed in between two huge sky scrapers in the heart of New York, just over the road from Central Park, where much of the later part of the film is set.

The film starts with George (Jonathan Lipnicki) and his parents, Mr and Mrs Little (Hugh Laurie and Geena Davis), excited about the prospect of a new additon to the Little family. Mr and Mrs Little are to bring home a child from NYC Public Orphanage No. 3. Unable to choose between the many engaging children in need of a good home, they are surprised when a small white mouse-boy starts to talk to them.

Stuart (Michael J Fox) is far more boy than he is mouse - he looks more like a human with a mouse head and hands than a real mouse. This makes it far easier to identify with Stuart, and makes the conceit of a talking mouse adopted by human parents much easier to swallow. The mouse-boy blend could explain why although the human characters in the film can talk to Stuart and understand him when he speaks, only Stuart can understand and talk to both the humans and the cats in the movie.

Inevitably the Little’s fall for Stuart’s easy charm and inquisitive character, and he becomes Stuart Little. Stuart Little’s brother George and the family cat Snowbell are not nearly so enthusiastic. Snowbell is appalled when he realises that he is probably the only cat in the world who is the pet of a mouse, whilst George really wanted a BIG brother. He can’t toss a baseball to a mouse, like his dad did with his brother, and Stuart is so small that he can’t even ride a bike.

After some hair raising scrapes involving getting mixed up with the laundry, and a close encounter with a flatulent feline, Stuart Little settles in to his new family, and even helps his new brother build and race a model boat. Everything is running smoothly, but Snowbell has other ideas, and hatches a plan to save the honour of cats everywhere with some of his alley cat friends...

WHAT WENT WRONG - AND RIGHT?

Stuart Little is a superbly animated film. Thirty animators worked on animating the mouse-boy, Stuart Little, who is computer generated with incredible photo-realism. A mime artist, Bill Irwin, worked with the animators to develop Stuart Little’s extraordinarily expressive movements, and the films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were used as a starting point. The Stouts, Stuart’s “real” parents, were also created by Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Although most of the animation was computer generated, a handful of animatronic shots of Stuart Little were used, and a mixture of model and Computer Generated shots were used for some effects, such as when Stuart picked up the model ship’s remote control, and when Stuart is sailing the ship. This worked very well, and goes a long way towards making Stuart seem real. The lighting is also beautifully done, with painstaking attention to detail.

Director of Photography, Guillermo Navarro pressed for all the film to be set based, making the live action blend seamlessly with the 650 animated shots in the film. This gives the film an air of unreality - fairy tale made flesh - as Stuart Little comments “Now I know fairy tales are real”. This blend of unreality and fantasy, whilst setting the film in the “real” location of New York City makes Stuart Little seem real, and the human characters somewhat cartoony.

The cats, who go a long way towards leavening the all American schmaltz of Stuart Little with their sarcastic remarks, were made to “talk” by digital manipulation, with most of the animation involving the cats created by Rhythm & Hues, who won an Oscar for their work on Babe. Although the cats had a relatively small role at first, this developed during shooting, with Snowbell, Monty, Smoky, Lucky and Red eventually appearing in more than 125 shots. Using cats was not without its problems: one sequence which lasted only four minutes took over 80,000 feet of film because it was so hard to get the cats to co-operate.

Overall I loved the animation in Stuart Little, and this was the one redeeming feature of the film for me.

So where did it go wrong?

Director Rob Minkoff, whose credits include The Lion King, has made an uneven transition from directing exclusively animated features to Stuart Little, which combines live action with the computer-generated character of Stuart Little. In an article by Joe Fordham, “Meet Stuart Little”, Minkoff comments on the challenge he faced in the switch from directing pure animation to live action:

“When I came onto a set the first day, I kept going up to the actors and I wanted to raise their eyebrows, I wanted to redraw their expression.”

He was not the only one. Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie give incredibly stilted performances, and the strain of having to act to a red dot produced by a laser (which showed them where Stuart would be in the finished film) is clear. Geena Davis in particular has a tendency to look blank, and a lot less animated than Stuart Little. If I was to guess which one was real, I would go for Stuart Little every time.

I am also somewhat suspicious of the use of the traditional white anglo saxon protestant human characters, especially the blond haired George. Is it any coincidence that George’s boat is called Wasp? It certainly isn’t painted yellow and black as you would expect, and no explanation is given for its name. Even Stuart Little is a white mouse, and Snowbell is a white pedigree persian cat. I found myself wondering why all the alley cats had dark coloured fur... In this fairy tale New York it seems that the ideal family is exclusively white and middle class, which considering New York’s long tradition of ethnic diversity, is surely significant. Interestingly when the Little’s decide they want to adopt Stuart, the director of the orphanage tries to discourage them, saying that they don’t normally recommend adopting a child from a different species.... Although the theme of the film is one of accepting difference, you find yourself asking just how different Stuart Little really is from his adoptive family.

I felt that the movie was far too long, and struggled to see which age-group it would be suitable for. At over 90 minutes it is too long for very young children, although I felt that our three and a half year old would have been happy to sit through it if it had more pace, like Toy Story, which she has watched on many occasions. She was asking to go home at least half an hour before the end of the film, and when I asked her why she wanted to go, said that it was too scary. If she had been able to keep up an interest in the plot, like she did with Toy Story and 101 Dalmations, I don’t think being a bit scared would have spoilt the film for her.

I felt that if the film had been a little simpler, and more upbeat, perhaps ending after the boat race, she would have enjoyed it a lot more than she did. The plot was too complex for her to follow, but I feel that an older child might have got bored waiting for something to happen, and would have found the sequences involving the cats too tame.

The ending of the film, although somewhat bland for adult viewers, was too much for her and she started to cry and hide her head in my jacket, much as she did at the end of 101 Dalmations (shouting “The puppies are dead” as they jumped out of police cars and vans????). Fortunately there are a number of amusing clips that run alongside the titles at the end, which got her laughing again.

My overall verdict is that this film is not worth the money you will have to fork out to see in the cinema, but a lot of the effect of the animation will lose their impact on a small screen, particularly the boat race scenes and the views of New York at night. The animation is Oscar worthy, but as is often the case, dazzling special effects are let down by the weak overly sentimental plot and the human elements of the film.

So rent it rather than seeing it in the cinema, but prepare to be disappointed - I desperately wanted to like this film, because of the wonderful animation and the fantastic realisation of the Stuart Little character, but I felt let down by the plot and the acting of its human stars.

WEB SITES

The Stuart Little web site (unfortunately nothing about the film, just merchandise for the US market, and a couple of games):

www.stuartlittle.com

Some very informative articles from the www.vfxpro.com web site:

Joe Fordham’s article - Meet Stuart Little

www.vfxpro.com/article/mainv/0,7220,104070,00.html

Bob OHaver’s article - Henry Anderson, CG Animation Supervisor, 'Stuart Little'

www.vfxpro.com/article/mainv/0,7220,113361|1,00.html

Ron Magid’s article - John Dykstra, Senior VFX Supervisor, 'Stuart Little'

www.vfxpro.com/article/mainv/0,7220,102304,00.html

Ron Magid’s article - Guillermo Navarro Captures 'Stuart Little'

www.vfxpro.com/article/mainv/0,7220,105880,00.html
 

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