Movie Review: Mouse Hunt
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What Parents Should Know
Parents should know that children will identify with the
fuzzy little mouse, as the Smuntz brothers try to kill it, so
there may be some fear when the brothers almost kill it several
times with a variety of implements, including a nail gun. The
mouse fills the house with gas later and blows the brothers
sky-high.
Families who watch this video may want to have that old "Don't try this at home" talk. Also, you may want to discuss why we laugh at cartoonish violence.
Common Sense Media Review
Nathan Lane and Lee Evans are hapless brothers out to rid
their house of a very shrewd mouse in this vivacious and clever
1998 movie. Although something of a
Home Alone retread, it has far more brains, heart, and
style, which will endear it to adults as well as young viewers.
Take heed of the PG rating for excessive cartoon-style
violence.
Anyone who's dealt with mice on the loose in their home knows how pesky they can be. That's part of what makes Mouse Hunt fun; you can't help pitying the poor Smuntz brothers, who go to wild extremes trying to rid themselves of an elusive rodent. Kids will side with the mouse, of course, because it's cute and furry and performs some spectacular stunts (thanks to convincing and sparingly used computer-generated effects).
The story is loaded with the same sort of violent slapstick that makes the Home Alone series so dreary, but it works here, in part because it doesn't pit a little boy against vengeful criminals, but also because the movie maintains an atmosphere of unreality, robbing the mayhem of much of its sting.
About two-thirds of the way through it takes an excessively cruel turn, though, when the mouse floods the house with gas fumes and blows the brothers sky-high. Kids will eat it up, but parents may wince. Time once again for that old "Don't try this at home" talk.
The movie had a sweet but slightly morbid 5-year-old laughing within the first two minutes, when a coffin toboggans down a flight of church steps, slams into a hearse, and catapults a dead body through the air and down an open manhole. The same little girl thought the aliens in Men in Black were funny (and they are).
Casting Christopher Walken as an exterminator is just one of many inspired touches that gives this movie its adult appeal. William Hickey is also fine -- in one of his last performances -- as frail old Rudolph Smuntz, whose somber portrait keeps changing expression after he passes on.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
