Mouse Hunt (1997)

Mouse Hunt (1997)

4/10

Starring

Nathan Lane

Lee Evans

Directed by Gore Verbinski

Mouse hunt is a movie that adds up many years of slapstick comedy into one film. The movie is the kind of film you will enjoy as a child because the slapstick will come flying at you and reason don’t matter. That is what I got from this movie comparing the time I first saw it in late 1997 and now.

The movie, seeing it now is a mixture of errors. It comes as an idea getting blown to pieces by too many other ideas cramped into it. This makes it hard to understand what you are supposed to be laughing at. Is it the mouse who seems to be one step smarter than two adults. Is it the pair of adults brothers whose cruelty in trying to kill a mouse makes them seem stupid. Or the various measures used by other hired helps to kill the mouse.

Which ever reason this movie had for thinking it is a comedy, goes beyond my recollection of what comedy was in the 90s and what comedy is now.

The plot is about two brothers – Ernie and Lars Smuntz, played by Nathan Lane and Lee Evans. The brothers are the sons of once-wealthy string magnate Rudolf Smuntz. Rudolf and his sons didn’t seem to have much chemistry, especially Rudolf and Ernie. Ernie loath his father, for reasons that are neither clear nor shown. It was like the writers felt it better to leave us the viewers guessing why a grown man will just not care for his dying father.

After his death he leaves his estate to his sons, which included an outdated string factory, an old house and a debt. Ernie decided it was best for them to sell the house, when they discovered that the house was an antic.

They decided to do an open house and got an idea that the house could be worth more than $10 million. This made Ernie suggest that the best way to get top value for the house was to do an auction.

The only problem is, the house has a residence mouse. Ernie and Lars are doing everything and more to kill the mouse so that nothing will get in the way of their millions as they remodel the house for the auction.

Regardless of any negative talk this movie could have gotten it was a box office success. So successful it was that I'm surprised that a sequel was not shaped up for creation. The man behind directing this movie was Gore Verbinski and this was his full-length movie directorial debut.

In the end I can say if you liked Mouse Hunt in the 90s and think of having another go at it now, I will advise against it and say, stick with the memory, it serves better.