What might have been a one-note family comedy becomes something more thanks to the comic brilliance of co-stars Nathan Lane and Lee Evans, as well as the distinctive, dark-fable look given the film by a little-known director named Gore Verbinksi (could he be the next Tim Burton?). Lane and Evans play idiotic brothers who inherit a house and all but destroy it in pursuit of one small, pesky mouse. The guys are always the butt of the sight gags--most of which are very funny--but their considerable powers as slapstick artists are also at play. The climactic scene at an auction was the funniest scene in any American movie in 1997, the year of Mouse Hunt's release. --Tom Keogh