Worse for Stuart, the family cat, Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane), despises Stuart, and conspires with several alley cats to dispose of Stuart in such a way that Snowbell will not be seen as culpable. This involves Stuart's re-adoption by a pair of animated mice posing as his birth parents, respectively voiced by Jennifer Tilly and the late Bruno Kirby. But Stuart soon learns about the ruse, and returns home via Central Park, where the alley cats wait in ambush.
Don't worry, though, it is a family film, and no animals are harmed, not even the animated ones.
How others will see it. Stuart Little was a box office hit, grossing 300M worldwide. This allowed the movie to make a tidy profit despite a surprisingly high production cost of 150M. The film's commercial success led to two predictably titled sequels, Stuart Little 2 (2002) and Stuart Little 3 (2006).
But all were not pleased with the movie. True, it squeaked out an Academy Award nomination, for Best Visual Effects, and received three nods at the Saturn Awards, including Best Fantasy Film and Best Supporting Actress (Geena Davis, who would have won if there had been a Hottest Mother category).
Complaints about the movie are generally from three categories: those who have read the source classic E.B. White children's book, which has little in common with the movie; cat lovers, who are offended (why, I can't imagine) about the portrayal of cats as mouse eaters; and men, who regard the whole project as lame, especially the invariably polite adoptive parents, and aw-shucks humble pie Stuart Little.
Indeed, at imdb.com, the lowest user votes come from middle-aged men (5.7) while the highest user votes are from females under 18 (6.6) and women over 45 (6.4). Regardless, the user vote total of 89K indicates that it has been the soup du jour for countless children.
How I felt about it. Stuart Little is both dumb and amusing. But is dumb in a deliberate, charming way, instead of insulting. The story is never credible, but it was never intended as such. Indeed, the writers (which include M. Night Shyamalan of The Sixth Sense fame) wink at us throughout the movie, letting us know that events work out as they do only because they must, and in the meanwhile, enjoy the jokes, such as "I can't believe I'm arguing with lunch."
The subplot involving the cats is probably the weakest. More should have been done with the fake mouse parents, who have more character than the nice but bland human parents. But at least we are spared an overdose of bonding moments between mouse and boy, even though that is putatively the reason that Stuart was adopted in the first place.