Mousehunt

Starring: Nathan Lane, Lee Evans, Vicki Lewis, Maury Chaykin, Eric Christmas, Michael Jeter, Christopher Walken, Debra Christofferson
Directed by: Gore Verbinski
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy
1997

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Two brothers (Nathan Lane, Lee Evans) inherit an old house from their late father. In the house is a mouse who thwarts their increasingly elaborate attempts to rid themselves of the vermin.

Review:

Tim: From the outset, there wasn't much that felt appealing to me about Mousehunt. A couple of guys try to get a clever mouse out of their house and hijinks ensue. Going into the film, I was surprised to see it was directed by Gore Verbinski. He's done some excellent work throughout his career, so suddenly, I was much more enthusiastic about the promises of this movie. Unfortunately, my initial reaction proved to be the most accurate. Verbinski does a few interesting things with this movie, but it's mostly a forgettable effort. It felt a bit like a live action "Tom and Jerry" cartoon, which might be appealing to younger viewers, but doesn't have much cross-demographic appeal.

I suppose the inherent idea here is a solid one. Two bumbling brothers wreck havoc in their house as they're trying to catch a mouse. That offers up a ton of comedic possibilities. I can see how the idea would be appealing. Unfortunately, the script doesn't execute well on this idea and Verbinski allows the whole affair to devolve into buffoonery. I believe there was a way to tell this story in a way that felt evens lightly realistic. That doesn't happen here.

As the movie progresses, it takes on increasingly cartoonish behavior. Sure, this might be somewhat appealing to younger viewers, but it just felt harder and harder to take seriously. Did we really need to see the mouse's home, which was decorated with a mouse bed with sheets and other human decorations? I suppose it might have been a cute scene for a moment, but it's not like it comes into play ever again. The mouse's behavior becomes increasingly sophisticated as it acts more and more with human intelligence as the film went on. I kept asking myself if that was necessary? Was it essential for the story to pit these two brothers against a genius mouse with unheard of levels of intelligence in rodents? Couldn't it have still been a hilarious adventure if all their efforts continually backfired as this normal mouse evaded capture? I really think it would have made the whole thing funnier and more enjoyable had it been grounded just a bit more in reality.

Another part of the issue here is that the story isn't substantial enough to support an entire movie around it. It feels like a great episode of television, but there's not enough here to warrant a 90+ minute movie. We spend a lot of time on the human characters. The whole story feels stretched to the breaking point. I know the movie isn't long, but even at 98 minutes, it probably could have been 15 minutes shorter. That's not a good sign when your short movie feels too long.

I can't say I was a big fan of the depiction of the human characters here. The film needed to strike this delicate balance- they needed to be unlikable enough so that we'd root for the mouse to outsmart them, but not so despicable that we wouldn't be okay with them in the end. It was a really tough balance to hit and i don't believe Verbinski or the cast quite nailed it. You can see the amount of effort that went into it, but it's not believable. Think about this issue- we need to learn about these characters and kind of like them. But then, we need to prefer the mouse to them and hope the mouse beats them. Then at the end, we need to be invested enough in them to care about how their story wraps up. It was exceedingly difficult and it didn't quite work out well enough, which is a big reason why the movie wasn't better.

I thought Nathan Lane was okay in the lead role. He's a good actor and brings that to the part, but it was just too difficult to be likable and unlikable and over-the-top but also funny. I'm not sure who could have pulled it off. I was pretty surprised how bad Lee Evans was. I'm not sure why he was cast in the second role, because he didn't do anything that felt interesting or memorable to me. He was so bland and forgettable. I was excited to see Christopher Walken in a supporting role and I suppose the movie gets better when he shows up, but his role is too isolated and ineffective to be much help. The rest of the supporting cast was okay.

There might have been some good ideas in this movie, but Gore Verbinski didn't have enough experience to capitalize on them. There were some humorous slapstick moments here and there, but it's not surprising that this was a first-time director making his feature film directorial debut. The movie feels like it gets away from Verbinski. He'd obviously go on to much greater things, but this wasn't the best way to start a career. This movie is okay, but it's far easier to point out the flaws than it is to isolate the strengths.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



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