DreamWorks Pictures released Mouse Hunt (or MouseHunt) on 19 December 1997.
I loved this film when it first came out. Years later, I read the reviews, which surprised me. The critics didn’t much like it. How do you not like this film?!
But at least Roger Ebert had a good reason for disliking it. I’m kidding, of course. His review was one of the classics: “I didn’t like this film for no particular reason so I reverse engineered my review!”
He gave us all a lesson about how comedy works!
A comedy that hasn’t assigned sympathy to some characters and made others hateful cannot expect to get many laughs, because the audience doesn’t know who to laugh at, or with.
Silly me! All these years, I thought Annie Hall was a comedy! And The Producers! Animal Crackers too! How could I have been so foolish?! Or could it be that Ebert was a useless hack? It still amazes me that people considered him a serious critic. I can’t think of any film that he provided a keen insight for.
Anyway, in Mouse Hunt, we know where our sympathies lie. We don’t want the mouse hurt. We are sympathetic toward the brothers but that is secondary. And we hope for an ending that is good for all three. Shockingly, we get it! And it is one that pleases their dead father. Truly, what’s not to like?!
Critics struggle most with comedy. I have never heard a critic engage this problem. You can find a film hysterical at one time and boring at another. Critics need to address this problem rather than speculating about how a film is not funny in some Platonic sense.
Mouse Hunt is extremely silly. And much of it is over-the-top. This isn’t surprising. It is written by Adam Rifkin, who is a total nutball. And it is directed by Gore Verbinski, who also directed the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films. With that in mind, I don’t see how you can miss with this film.
Unfortunately, all the streaming copies of the film on my main source are dubbed into other languages. Right now (and for only about a week), you can watch it for free on Hoopla. Right now, I’ll embed the trailer.
Mouse Hunt (1997) poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
Well, there’s One False Move. If it wasn’t for a glowing Siskel & Ebert review, that movie would have gone straight to video. So we can thank them for it — and for Devil in a Blue Dress, too, which wouldn’t have been made without One False Move’s widespread acclaim. And both critics were staunch opponents of colorization, when there was a real danger of it replacing/ruining all the classics.
That said, they missed some biggies. They praised Juzo Itami’s Tampopo, which is nice! It’s a fun film. But they said nothing when he was murdered in 1997. Probably by the Yakuza! For making Minbo, which satirized the Yakuza. The most popular filmmaker in Japan — a country with immense importance in world cinema — was murdered, because of a very good movie he made, and for the most part, American critics didn’t notice. Bad, critics! Very bad!
They like foreign films just enough to seem cool. As for colorization, I like it in one way: it has resulted in a number of B&W films being repaired. So because of the colorized The Last Man on Earth, we have a fantastic B&W print! But it is very annoying when I’m looking for a free print of a film and there is only a colorized print available. I absolutely will not use them. It would be one thing if they were good. But they look terrible! I think the idea was that TV could run the colorized films. But they are so obviously colorized, people will flip past them as fast as they do a B&W film. On the other hand, I think “pan and scan” is arguably as bad. But I will post a print like that if I’m desperate. Thankfully, that is almost never necessary.
Peter Jackson is (now) a pompous rich doink… but I thought there was something to his use of colorization in “They Shall Not Grow Old.” It’s a collection of WWI documentary footage, restored and colorized (quite well). To make the loss of all those young lives seem more modern and relatable.
I think one could argue either way on the colorization. I don’t need it. I’m happy with restoring the old footage alone. But if it makes it a movie more likely for kids to understand in schools, then I’m all for it. Kids can respond to some heavy stuff in schools. I remember seeing some crappy TV movie in fourth grade about Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce called “I Shall Fight No More Forever” and it had a HUGE effect on me, in a good way.
Oh, pan-and-scan is evil! I still run across it on library DVDs from time-to-time. That’s like keeping books in your collection where the pages are damaged! There’s usually some modern DVD company that bought the rights ages ago and sells new DVDs for like $5, get those copies!
I hadn’t heard of that but I just watched the trailer of They Shall Not Grow Old and it does look shockingly good. That’s my main issue with colorization. If it can be done well, fine. Although I love B&W!
As for pan and scan, I wish it were illegal. I’m okay with simple cropping. If I can’t get anything else, it’s fine. But moving the center of the frame is re-directing. And that sucks!
That whole late 90s/early 2000s period has some weird DVDs. Like the whole thing of putting wide-screen on one side, pan-and-scan on the other. Yuck. I’ll find some where the menu page (Play Movie, Chapter Select, etc.) is formatted for 16:9 TVs, but the film is pan/scan. And vice versa!
I agree on cropping. At least with cropping you can imagine what the full image looked like.
A personal pet peeve of mine now is when indie filmmakers and documentary filmmakers use the Cinemascope format (extra wide-screen; where you have black bars on the top/bottom of your 16:9 TV).
If you’re making a movie virtually NOBODY will see in the theater, why use that format? The picture will actually be smaller, for most viewers. They think it looks “cinematic.” I think it looks pretentious. When I see a movie in that format, I already have a beef against it.
Love Mouse Hunt. It’s a great film for entertain the entire family which is so rare these days. I’m watching it again with my teens and it’s just as funny. The critics don’t know anything!
“The critics don’t know anything!” could be the slogan for this site! As for the film, I just don’t know how anyone dislikes it. There’s a direct line from Mack Sennett to Mouse Hunt. Just sit back and enjoy!