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Verdict: The movie casts off its charm for cheap laughs.

Details: Starring Geena Davis and the voice of Michael J. Fox. Directed by Rob Minkoff. Rated PG for brief profanity. 1 hour, 33 minutes.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: When rodents show up, you've got to act fast or they quickly multiply. Like the tiny, sweet, spool-pushing mouse Mr. Jingles in "The Green Mile." And now, the slightly larger, talking, roadster-driving title rodent in "Stuart Little."

Based very loosely on E.B. White's 1945 children's book, Stuart is a 3-inch-tall computer-animated wonder voiced by Michael J. Fox. He brushes his teeth, gargles and aw-shucks smiles with such convincing visuals you'll swear he's the next best critter since Babe.

And his movie does start that way.

"Stuart Little" opens with all the fabled charm of an inventive pop-up book. Stuart's an orphan in a glossy, stylized and distinctly pristine modern-day New York City that glistens with the candy-colored allure of a half century ago.

His story, at first, unfolds as slowly, effortlessly and magically as a rising Nutcracker Christmas tree.

The human Little family, of course, adopts him. And as he nestles in the embrace of Geena Davis (who warmly plays the mom in a role she could do blindfolded) and gets to know adoptive brother Jonathan Lipnicki (who doesn't appear to have aged more than a day beyond Jerry Maguire), "Stuart Little" is the kind of movie you could end up filing on the video shelf between "A Christmas Story" and "Fairy Tale — A True Story."

Unfortunately, there's a second half.

The film devolves into a typical, which-way-did-he-go chase flick as a coven of cats tries to make lunch meat of our star mouse.

The movie casts off a lot of its charm for cheap laughs (voicing the effeminate kitty Snowbell, Nathan Lane utters lines like "I think I'm going to cough up a furball"), a bit of slapstick and even one cat calling out a mild obscenity.

Many kids are likely to love it, though. So save a space on the back of the video shelf.

— Bob Longino, Cox News Service

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