Stuart Little 2 (2002)

It's a sign of the times that ''Stuart Little,'' one of the rare sublime novels for children, was turned into an air-popped, digitally animated talking-critter jamboree that wiped away the book's melancholy beauty. The surprise of Stuart Little 2 is that, in its slapstick-lite way, it comes closer than the first movie did to evoking the book's wistful vision of loyalty and friendship.

Stuart, now comically well-integrated into the Little family (it's a wry joke that Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie casually refer to him as their ''son''), finds a comrade in Margalo, a troubled parakeet who drops out of the sky and into his miniature sedan. Michael J. Fox and Melanie Griffith voice these two with a vulnerable urgency, and the animation is so vibrant that you can practically reach out and touch the fur and feathers. Very much a kiddie ride, ''Stuart Little 2'' is lively without being hyperactive -- it's a bouncy mouse caper with a wee bit of soul.

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