ironhorse_iv Review of Mousehunt

Mousehunt (1997)

This rat race dark comedy truly does take the cheese. For the most part, it was a very entertaining funny film.

[6/10 · 1 June 2020]

Are you man or mouse? For Ernie (Nathan Lane) and Lars Smuntz (Lee Evans) that is the question they must ask themselves when they found themselves as poor as a church mouse after their once wealthy father Rudolf Smuntz (William Hickey) dies. Left with only an outdated string factory and a broken drown mansion; the brothers hope to properly restored both in order to recover their lives. However, a clever smart pesky house vermin stands in their way. Directed by Gore Verbinski in his directorial debut & written by Adam Rifkin, the film released by DreamWorks Pictures has tons of things that might be view as today as not suitable for children depending on the parents. While there are a lot of humor involving bodily fluids that are common in most kid's movies and cartoony violence. There is surprisingly a large amount of sexual innuendos moments. One such example was the yarn balls dropping to the floor after a nude man see a woman in stimulating lingerie. To add onto that, there is even a sequence where the two leads are digging their hands down the dresses of two women and unzipping their fly to get a mouse out; meanwhile yelling at each other using profanity. Yet the most surreal humor in this film has to do with the topic of death. Seeing a minor character died by choking on a cockroach and the brothers dropping their father's corpse down a manhole is an odd choice to see in a kid's movie. Probably the worst has to be the acts of fictional animal cruelty. For example, the scene where a cat might had possibly got murder when falling down a dumbwaiter shaft and another one being gassed at the pound. It's never really proven if the creatures lived or not. It's really disturbing and morbid. As for the human characters dealing with the rodent. I really surprised that the main characters were able to endure the pain that they went through without several injuries. In real life, they would had died a thousand times especially when two huge bombs gone off. While the action can be jarring because how a mouse could do unrealistic harm to them like possibly disconnect the sewage pipe and connect their vacuum to it. Better yet, locking them in a truck case. I still wasn't taken too much out of the film. I was just deeply surprised by all this being in a silly cat & mouse 1990s 'Home Alone' style movie rather than a dark 'Addams Family' like flick. Either way, the film was indeed fun to watch at times especially whenever Christopher Walken's minor hammy character Cesar the eccentric exterminator is involved, but I doubt this is comedy that most young kids will get. After all, how many of them will know who Fidel Castro is. This film is not appropriate for a PG rating. It's more like a PG-13. Small children will indeed be frightened by certain things. As an adult. Certain parts are hard to watch now, knowing that performers like Hickey was indeed seriously ill and died in real life during the film's production. I was really surprised that the filmmakers didn't recast his part or make any major changes to the script to accommodate his death. It really feels surreal and cringe-worthy seeing his scenes in this flick. To add onto the awkwardly there also unexplained supernatural scenes of where a painting of his character magically changes moods throughout the film like he was watching the events unfold like a ghost. The film also acts like the mouse could had Rudolf reincarnate with the sandwich hint, but it really doesn't go anywhere. Plus, it doesn't look good seeing if he was the mouse, he really put his sons in harm by trying to kill them. Because of that parts of this movie don't make any sense. Yet the main reason why this flick didn't do so well with some audience members is the fact that two main characters and the titular mouse are really not that sympathetic. Especially Ernie who is really cynical, greedy and selfish. He's so unlikeable. The fact the mouse and him take turns destroying each other's lives like a personal mission while no backbone Lars flip flop between killing the mouse and leaving the rodent alone is somewhat nerve wrecking. The out of the blue forced Deus ex Machina happy ending with all three making up is just as annoying; seeing how the mouse just minutes earlier ate their father's lucky string and the rodent losing his home to unrealistic water damage. I really couldn't buy it with all the suffering and punishment each character put each other through. It's also bit jarring to see them have all that success seeing how the film left them two with no money, no employees and no home. I doubt Lar's money hungry ex-wife April (Vicki Lewis) came to save them again once more. That the problem with this movie. It has really bad pacing. First off, the mouse doesn't appear until 20 minutes into the film and the conflict is solve way too quickly in the climax. Despite the story not being that good. I did like the acting and the humor. The insider jokes involved the 1994 animation film 'the Lion King' references and cameos are some of the best. Also, the CGI effects and puppetry were indeed pretty decent for the time. Nevertheless, the look of the film was tops. Love the retro art deco neo noir look of the film even if the time period of the settling is a bit confusing. To go along with it, the film's original score by composer Alan Silvestri is really catchy. It has been extensive use for commercials as well as other films. No wonder why this film was a financial success. It's bold but subtle. Classical yet nontraditional. Overall: It's one movie clearly worth hunting for.