A more exciting Stuart Little 2

Stuart Little 2 — it is quiet obvious — is the sequel to that cute little story abut this cute little mouse who is taken into this cute but not so little home of this cute human family surnamed Little.

Two years have passed between the film’s first outing and the ongoing sequel. Our mouse hero Stuart Little (voiced by Michael J. Fox) has already fully adjusted to his foster parents (Hugh Laurie and Geena Davis) and foster brother (Jonathan Lipnicki) and now even has a new baby sister (Anna Hoelck). And surprise, surprise –the usually bad-tempered house cat, Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane) is no longer a threat to Stuart’s life and is, in fact, starting to warm up to him.

Stuart now also goes to school and drives around the city of New York in a cute little sports car. One day, a little yellow bird literally drops from the sky and falls right smack into the passenger seat of his red car. The bird (probably a canary) turns out to be Margalo (voiced by Melanie Griffith) and her wing is badly injured. Since she has no place to stay, Stuart generously offers his home to her – to the annoyance of Snowbell, of course.

Now, I don’t want to be malicious here, but there is a hint of cross-species romance between the mouse Stuart and the bird Margalo in the story and this just doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t know with the other viewers, but I find this inter-species love angle to be a little bit off. Can you imagine what kind of offspring they’d produce? A little baby bat in all probability.

Mercifully, there is no hint of intimacy between the two in this For General Patronage movie. But they do have fun – like taking in a drive-in movie by parking the little car in front of the TV set. And the movie they watch, the Alfred Hitchcock classic thriller, Vertigo (about Kim Novak deceiving James Stewart) ominously foretells of the series of events that later take place in Stuart Little 2.

Margalo, you see, is not an innocent little yellow bird after all. It turns out that she has another color other than yellow and is in reality a con artist controlled by a mean and tough falcon (voiced by James Woods) who controls all pets and pests in Manhattan. Her sudden and mysterious disappearance from the Little home and Stuart’s search for her provide the mystery and adventure in this film, which includes a fantastic serial fight scene toward the end.

Compared to the initial installment of Stuart Little (released in 2000), the sequel is a lot more exciting – yes, even to adults. The technology employed in Stuart Little 2, in fact, is also a lot more impressive compared to the first version which already wowed me no end with its seamless computer-generated effects.

The story this time is also better structured and the dialogues are a lot more creative. Contributing greatly to the bigger success of this new Stuart Little film are the excellent voice acting done by Nathan Lane and Melanie Griffith.

The only problem with this cute little film is that there is little screen time to savor the movie because it only runs for 78 minutes – maybe just right for kids, but a little way too short for the accompanying adults who are probably hoping to stretch their peso longer (what with the now stiffly priced admission tickets) by seeing a lot more out of this cute little film.

Wrong casting

Oops. Sorry, but I got the wrong casting when I announced in this column last Saturday that ABS-CBN talents are appearing in GMA-7’s Pira-Pirasong Pangarap. Well, at least, I got it right when I said that Joyce Jimenez of Whattamen is starring in Pira-Piraso’s special presentation of Alyana, which started airing last Monday. What I got wrong was the name of Joyce’s leading man. I said that it was Carlos Agassi. However, it turned out to be Carlo Muñoz ("Billy of the PLDT commercial.)

Well, the good news is that - and I got it right this time - Manny Castañeda, who co-directs Alyana with Jeffrey Jeturian, is raving about the performance of Carlo Muñoz. Castañeda says that Carlo is a sensitive actor with very soulful eyes. I saw this for myself when I watched Muñoz in Yamashita: The Tiger’s Treasure for which he won the FAMAS Best Supporting Actor award and Star Award’s Most Promising Newcomer - plus several nominations in other award-giving bodies, including the Gawad Urian.

To Carlo Muñoz, congratulations for getting such high marks from your director and yes, sorry for the blooper.