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Before "Stuart Little", the smartest rodent on the block was the one that outsmarted Nathan Lane and Lee Evans in Gore Verbinski's "Mousehunt", a manic riff on "主播大秀 Alone" that pays homage to the classic slapstick of Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and the Marx Brothers.
Having inherited a dilapidated mansion, avaricious Ernie Smuntz (Lane, the voice of Timon the meercat in "The Lion King") and his dim-witted brother Lars (British comic Evans) plan to spruce it up, sell it off, and use the proceeds to save their struggling string factory. But they've reckoned without the building's solitary sitting tenant: a pesky mouse who thwarts the siblings at every turn with an ingenuity that recalls cartoon critter Jerry in his heyday.
Not even ace exterminator Caesar (Christopher Walken in a brief but telling cameo) stands a chance against this four-legged pest, brilliantly brought to life with a blend of animatronics, computer generated imagery, and trained vermin. Verbinski is certainly no stranger to this kind of anthropomorphic trickery, having been the brains behind those Budweiser beer adverts that made stars of a kvetching iguana and a bunch of croaking frogs.
The tale runs out of steam by the end, but the film remains watchable throughout thanks to Lane and Evans's appealing double act and the inventive antics of their furry little nemesis. Incidentally, "Mousehunt" was one of the first features to emerge from DreamWorks SKG, the fledgeling studio founded in 1996 by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen.
"Mousehunt" is on 主播大秀1 at 2.40pm, 26th December 2000.
