Stuart Little

It's bad enough that Rob Minkoff's adaptation of the E.B. White children's classic trades Stuart the mouse's natty togs for cutesy sneakers, and that the rodent's interspecies love interest -- a sweet songbird named Margalo -- has migrated right out of the script. But most egregious of all here is the sanitizing of White's light absurdist touch: Mrs. Little (Geena Davis) doesn't give birth to her two-inch son but adopts him.

Minus the genetic puzzler, the tale hemorrhages much of the original's charm and irreverence, instead chirping along as a treacly but innocuous allegory about fitting in and finding the meaning of family (Hugh Laurie and Jerry Maguire's Jonathan Lipnicki round out the Little clan). As for the mouse himself, this Stuart -- computer-generated and voiced by Michael J. Fox -- lacks the waggish, indomitable edge of his literary counterpart. He even shrinks from his furball foe, Snowbell the cat (Nathan Lane), who mews one line too many about feline flatulence. Such details, of course, are a modern affront to White's arch world of mice and men, a clear sign that this rodent romp likes its cheese. At the Harbour Mall, Showcase, Starcase, Tri-Boro, and Woonsocket cinemas.
-- Mark Bazer