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A sequel whose most interesting characteristic could have been how little Jonathan Lipnicki has grown since Jerry Maguire, Stuart Little 2 is the rare follow-up that ditches commercialism for heart. Director Rob Minkoff takes a surprisingly self-referential and sophisticated approach here, realizing and excising the predecessor’s weaknesses to create a film well-deserving of inevitable "Better than the first!" critical blurbs. Minkoff acknowledges the spectrum of appeal his film has, keeping the running time at a kid-friendly 84 minutes while throwing in clever political humor and a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo for older audiences, all in celebration of a fictional character who’s played hero to children for over 50 years.

Stuart Little 2 chooses to not preach family values but rather to celebrate the pleasures of having a place to call home. The CGI-animated Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) stands for a generation in loneliness that refrains from desperation on account of a family, and his brother George (Lipnicki) is the rebel who’s growing apart from his younger sibling, yet they’re constantly reminded by their "Little Hi, Little Low/Little Hey, Little Ho" trademark greeting of their place as brothers in a loving family. Mother Eleanor (Geena Davis) and father Frederick (Hugh Laurie) may be written with impossible optimism by Bruce Joel Rubin, but there’s no harm done–these are parents merely playing the roles the way they’re meant to be, ensuring full stomachs and lights-out goodnights.

Young ones may be too unobservant to notice, but production designer Bill Brzeski, cinematographer Steven B. Poster, and costume designer Mona May have achieved something incredible in their pop-up book-perfect presentation of the film. Brzeski creates a glossed-over New York with bursting, bright colors at every turn that are filmed by Poster with exceptional care. May outfits the Littles in a variety of orange and yellow outfits that suit the family’s almost tongue-in-cheek sunny disposition. Visually more obvious are the improved digital effects that give Stuart a more textured personality and also bring a pair of new characters to life–Margalo (voiced by Melanie Griffith), a sweet bird who befriends Stuart for reasons unbeknownst to him at first, and Falcon (voiced by James Woods), whose affiliation with Margalo will send Stuart and his new friend on life-risking perils.

Funny as it sounds, replace Stuart and Margalo with live actors and you’ve got a classic Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn-esque romp, albeit on a slightly smaller level. Stuart is Grant, the amiable hero whose alienation is easy to identify with, Margalo is Hepburn, the one who’s just waiting for the right guy–or mouse–to come along and sweep her off her feet, and prissy feline Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane) is the one-liner cracking scene-stealer. The central pair find themselves in a number of well-staged action sequences that range in location from Central Park to the Pishkin Building and in mode of transportation from airplane to garbage barge, all the while testing the trials of friendship and trust, learning a thing or two along the way. Watching these characters inhabit the screen is a hugely rewarding experience, but, even more notably: This is the first film with overhead shots of New York skylines in quite some time that I didn’t feel sick looking at. Bravo, Stuart.

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