This new family film incorporates aspects of such talking animal films as Babe, and Dr. Doolittle (1998). Actually, I liked Stuart Little more than those pictures. It's certainly funnier than Dr. Doolittle and more charming than the Babe pictures. Although this film gets quite hokey at times, it manages a brisk pace, seamless effects, and great family fun.

The Littles' desperately want to adopt a brother for their young son (played by wide-eyed Jonathan Lipnicki). They find him in the form of a cute talking mouse (voiced beautifully by Michael J. Fox). Trouble arises when The Littles' house cat tries to rid the home of it's new addition.

Stuart Little offers nothing new in the way of story telling. It's pretty straight forward, but that's part of its charm. It also helps that the final act of this film is very impressive in terms of its technical aspects.

The film makers have also gone out of their way to not cheat the audience. The computer generated mouse is obviously the star of the show and he's in nearly every frame of this picture.

Human actors Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie and Lipnicki hold up nicely against the barrage of special effects this film has to offer. Jennifer Tilly, Bruno Kirby, Chazz Palminteri, and Nathan Lane fair well as the voices of several animals in this tale based on the books by E.B. White.

Stuart Little isn't the best family film in the past few months, but it's certainly better than most.